Sierra Vista 'Dad Olympics' heads into its 2nd year

With Father’s Day right around the corner, one local Sierra Vistian wants to make dads feel extra special and bring their families together with the second annual SV Dad Olympics on June 17.

For Jai Rocha, the SV Dad Olympics event coordinator, it’s about celebrating dads and bringing families together.

“This event really is just to kinda bring back that Fathers’ Day mentality, to get those families together — to work together — come up with cool prizes that they can win,” Rocha told AZPM Monday. “A lot of events you go to, it’s kinda like either all about the kids or all about the adults. And I wanted to find, like, a good hybrid-way of kinda, like, bringing those two together, and really helping to reinforce that family structure by getting parents to play with their kids throughout the day.”

He said that the event consists of four main challenges that dads get to compete in alongside their children against other dads and their kids.

“We’re going to do Top Golf disc golf, where we’re going to set you out and you’ve got to try to make your frisbees into certain targets to earn certain points,” Rocha said. “We’re going to be doing a 50-yard grocery run, where dads and one of their kids jumps in. It’s a race against 10 other families at a time, and you’ve got to run 50 yards. First place, your points will double based upon the point value of the groceries you can get across the finish line.

The other game we’re going to do is — we’re going to be doing ‘water bombing dad’ where your kids are going to be throwing water balloons, dad has to stay — basically in the size of a hula hoop — and can’t move out of his circle,” Rocha continued. “And he has to catch water balloons from his kids in a five-gallon bucket … And we’re also going to be doing our 'family-ties dunk-it contest.' We're going to tie you and your family together, and you'll have a (rubber) noodle that you have to run and dunk your noodle into, like, washable paint. And then, continue to run against other families.”

After dads compete in each of the four challenges, they head off to the “Dad Playoffs,” which Rocha describes as “all of those points cumulatively add up and offer you an opportunity to jump into the Dad Playoffs. The ‘Dad Playoffs’ are going to be some head-to-head dad challenges.”

The result of the “Dad Playoffs” is how, according to Rocha, the top prize ‘Dad Olympians’ are determined.

The prizes include: first place gets $500 cash, a dinner with Sierra Vista Mayor Clea McCaa at Bam Bam BQQ, and a two-night stay at the Ramsey Canyon Inn: the second place Dad Olympian will get $250 and a “bus and pizza party”: third place gets an archery bow from Crockett Bro’s Archery and $100.

Rocha says that registration is a flat $35, regardless of how many kids you have, and half of the registration fee goes to a local charity, SV Gives Family Center.

The event will be at Veterans' Memorial Park in Sierra Vista and the games will begin at 12 p.m. on June 17. Rocha said the event is sponsored by Desert RV and Prestige Remodeling & Restoration along with others. In the event’s first year, about 70 dads participated and roughly 500 people total in foot traffic, according to Rocha.