North Carolina’s $55 Million Olympic Dream

Ike Belk, a scion of the prominent Charlotte department store family, captained the tennis team at Clemson University and hoped to play professionally. After graduating in 2009, Belk accompanied a close friend and fellow tennis player to a south Charlotte sports rehabilitation clinic run by David Koerner, a former college football player with a degree in exercise science. 

Koerner helped recondition future NFL player Chris Brown and figure skater Evan Lysacek, an Olympic gold medalist. 

Belk, who played briefly on the pro tour, liked what he saw at Koerner’s clinic. In 2012, they founded the Charlotte-based United States Performance Center, a for-profit business. The company’s website says it takes “a science-based approach to create innovative and highly specialized training programs” that dramatically improve performance. 

The center has attracted athletes from at least 15 U.S. Olympic sports to train or hold events there. But Belk and Koerner have a bigger dream. 

Each Olympic sport has a U.S. governing body–52 in all, with half based in Colorado. Belk and Koerner want many of the national governing bodies to relocate to the Charlotte area with a long-range goal of the Queen City and the Carolinas hosting the summer Olympics.

Some leading North Carolina legislators bought into the dream. In 2021, they allocated $25 million in public funds “for capital needs” to the U.S. Performance Center to lure national governing bodies to Charlotte. Two years later, legislators provided another $30 million to the North Carolina Sports Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit Belk founded, for the same purpose. 

USPC and the nonprofit have spent $45.5 million of the $55 million as of June, according to documents provided to The Assembly from the Office of State Budget and Management. 

While the state money was supposed to fund capital needs, only about $10 million has paid to build facilities or buy equipment. Roughly $7 million went to the Robeson County-based construction firm Metcon, which built a field hockey pitch at UNC-Charlotte in hopes of attracting the sport’s governing body from Colorado. Another $3 million was spent on sports equipment or for repairs, such as $1.4 million for custom Keiser fitness machines and $427,000 to a Wisconsin treadmill company. 

The rest of the money was spent on other purposes, the documents show. USPC has charged more than $9.8 million for its own consulting services to the nonprofit, and has spent $2.9 million on salaries and benefits, including $800,000 to Belk and Koerner in two years. 

More than $4 million was spent on “services rendered to Olympic teams” and another $1.6 million for “USPC Olympic Services.” More than $4.5 million went to outside consultants. 

While dozens of Olympic athletes train in Charlotte, no national governing body has relocated there, although $4.5 million in state grant money has gone to 14 of the national groups, including USA Judo and USA Bobsled-Skeleton.

The spending has caught the eye of the state budget office, which administers state grants. It’s auditing the state money spent by USPC and is likely to audit the nonprofit. The number of expenses and amount of money classified it as “high risk,” communications director Marcia Evans said. 

USPC spokesman Jonathan Felts said before the company spent state money it provided financial plans to the budget office, as required, and those plans were approved. “USPC has achieved the required benchmarks of success and all of us are proud that our budgets have remained well in-line with what had been approved by OSBM,” Felts said in a written statement.

By the end of 2026, Felts said USPC will have hosted more than 200 athletic tournaments–from small regional trials to international championships–bringing hundreds of thousands of visitors to the state. He also said USPC is a finalist to host the 2027 Military World Games, one of the largest sporting events in the world with 120 countries participating. They are held every four years and are like the Olympics for athletes serving in the military. 

“We are confident North Carolina’s investment will continue to pay off for the state,” Felts wrote. “The goal is to get [national governing bodies] to relocate to North Carolina and energize greater economic development potential in the arena of athletic tourism.”

Olympic Roots 

When Ike Belk was a child, his grandfather and namesake took him to the  Olympics in Atlanta, Salt Lake City, and Athens. Displayed prominently on Belk’s office wall on UNC-Charlotte’s campus is a framed poster of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the first his grandfather attended at age 14. He later served as a state legislator and a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee. 

The elder Belk’s legacy is woven throughout UNC-Charlotte’s campus: The university’s existence is the product of a bill he introduced. His name christens UNC-Charlotte’s track. Belk credits the name of his grandfather, who died in 2018, with opening doors in the elite echelons of the Olympic community.

Belk and Koerner wanted to have the U.S. Olympic Committee endorse their training facility. They called Alicia McConnell, then the director of Olympic partnerships, from a Starbucks parking lot to find out if they could get a designation as a community training site for aspiring Olympic trainees.

“She started laughing at us,” Belk told The Assembly. She told them they would need to be a nonprofit, raise funds, get involved in the community, and come back when they had a three-year track record.

In late 2012, Belk formed a nonprofit—what became the North Carolina Sports Legacy Foundation—with a fellow Clemson grad and Charlotte-area business leaders, including attorney Walt Pettit, who is now its president. Belk stepped down from that post in 2015.

The organization’s early history included partnering with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to teach students how to ice skate. That earned them a Community Olympic Development training site designation from the national governing bodies for figure skating and ice hockey in 2015. 

For a decade, the nonprofit primarily funneled money to the U.S. Performance Center and almost exclusively sponsored one athlete, Casey Eichfeld, an Olympic canoeist. Eichfeld received $48,000 as a consultant to USPC in 2023. 

The nonprofit never took off financially until the state got involved. In 2022, the year before receiving $30 million from the state, the nonprofit brought in just $110. 

“We’ve asked, on the philanthropic side, a ton of people, including my grandfather,” Belk said, noting that even his grandfather turned them down. 

“It was a rough day when we got that answer,” Koerner said.

USPC had a small training facility in Charlotte. Working with Sam Konduros, a South Carolina economic development professional, they sought sites for an East Coast Olympic training hub in the Carolinas.

In 2018, the Charleston County parks commission in South Carolina approved an agreement for USPC to develop a riverfront training and public park site where “no public funds will be needed to develop, operate or maintain the facility.” 

Koerner said that caught the attention of Gov. Roy Cooper, who encouraged them to work with the North Carolina Research Campus, a 350-acre public-private research center in Kannapolis. USPC shifted its attention to Kannapolis. 

Eventually, the Kannapolis City Council approved a $1.15 million incentive package for USPC to locate in the city and, in late 2022, approved 24 acres to be sold to the center. 

The Kannapolis deal had checks and balances typical of economic development incentives. USPC met the first round of requirements, which included developing a site plan, but it never delivered on round two, when agreements from national governing bodies were needed. USPC returned the incentive money.

“We knew that the land purchases were not going through and their plans were not progressing, and they just decided to return the incentive money,” said Annette Privette Keller, Kannapolis’ communications director. “They knew that they were not meeting the deadlines and making progress here.” 

Not Debated 

While USPC’s plans didn’t succeed in North Charleston or Kannapolis, it scored big with the North Carolina General Assembly. 

Belk and Koerner said they spent six months in Raleigh speaking to anyone who would talk to them. “We literally had to talk to almost every legislator because we were a different project, and people had to understand what our initiatives and goals were,” Belk said.

He and Koerner might have talked with a lot of legislators, but most of them never got the chance to debate the funding. The appropriations to USPC and the nonprofit were made outside the normal budget process. Neither appropriation was publicly debated in committee. Legislative leaders sometimes insert items into the budget late in the process. 

“None of these funds received had a proper hearing and vetting, and questions answered that should have been answered,” said former state Rep. Charles Graham, a six-term Democrat from Robeson County and former House Appropriations Committee member who left office at the end of 2022. “That’s very, very unfortunate that the General Assembly leadership would allow that huge amount of money to go forward without a hearing.”

Graham said it was common for noncompetitive grants to be written into the budget at the last minute and without hearings, but not at this scale. That the money went to a for-profit company (as well as to a nonprofit) also raised a red flag.

“Using taxpayer money for the purpose of enriching for-profit ventures, I don’t think we should be doing that, period,” he said. 

The $25 million grant to USPC came from a state fund intended to repair or build public infrastructure; the nonprofit’s $30 million grant was funded by interest earned on federal American Rescue Plan dollars that were rerouted to an economic development fund. 

The appropriations came as a surprise to House Democratic Leader Rep. Robert Reives of Chatham County, who told The Assembly he’d never heard of USPC or the nonprofit. 

“We were not involved in the process at all, and it used to be just Democrats weren’t involved in the process, but Republicans, rank and file, aren’t involved anymore,” Reives said. “You’ve got about five people that know what’s in that budget when it drops.” 

Making grants outside the typical appropriations process has become more common in the past six to eight years, he said. That doesn’t allow legislators, advocates, state agencies, and experts to weigh in. “Had this gone through a committee process, somebody would have said, ‘Hey, we’re not going to just give you $55 million carte blanche. You’re going to have to have some oversight,’” Reives said.

The appropriations have received little media attention. In December 2021, the Charlotte Ledger appeared to be the first and only news outlet to report on the $25 million grant to the USPC. 

“Economic incentives typically come with commitments of jobs and investment, which so far have not surfaced,” wrote Ledger editor Tony Mecia. “But for a small company to get all that government money, it must be making some progress—right?” 

State Rep. Jason Saine, a Lincoln County Republican and the top House budget writer, defended the appropriations in an interview with The Assembly. He said the state had a surplus of tax revenue as well as millions of dollars in federal pandemic recovery funds.

“From a standpoint of economic development, sports tourism, I think it was just kind of right place, right time,” Saine said. “And legislators were in the right mind-set to say, ‘We see some serious return on this’—and we have.”

Saine said the details of how the money is spent is “way in the weeds for us as legislators,” and that it was up to the state budget office to make sure the money is spent properly. That office has three full-time employees to administer roughly 2,000 state grants. 

More Than $4.5 Million to Consultants

The Assembly asked USPC for receipts so it could determine, in detail, how the grant money was spent, but the company declined to provide them. 

The state “does not require us to provide a reporter, or anyone outside of the [state budget office], with full access to how our business succeeds,” Felts wrote. Doing so, he said, “would put us at a competitive disadvantage and increase the chances another state might try to replicate the successful public-private-partnership we share with the State of North Carolina.” 

USPC and the nonprofit have paid more than $4.5 million to outside consultants, including lawyer and engineer Seneca Jacobs of Robeson County. He and his firm received nearly $375,000 over two years. Felts said Jacobs “was instrumental in introducing USPC to key stakeholders across North Carolina,” and that Jacobs no longer works with USPC. Jacobs has contributed more than $300,000 to state politicians since 2020. 

Jacobs told The Assembly he’s “not a sports guy.” He said he was selected by USPC because of his relationships across North Carolina and not because of his political contributions. He said he received $20,000 a month, which also covered his travel expenses. 

Marion Warren, a former judge and former director of the state Administrative Office of the Courts, and his company Juristrat were paid at least $410,000 over two years for consulting. Warren is the subject of a federal subpoena for a separate state grant. He’s a “member-manager” of an affordable housing nonprofit that has received tens of millions in funding from the legislature, and gets a $213,000 salary as UNC-Wilmington’s legislative liaison, the Raleigh News & Observer reported. Warren provided legal services and counsel on how to partner with universities, Felts said.

Another consultant, Marty McCarthy, a former minister and founder of several Episcopal schools in the Charlotte area, was paid $720,000 over two years. McCarthy has contributed roughly $20,000 to Republican legislators since 2020, including $5,250 to Saine, $4,975 to appropriations vice chair Rep. David Willis, and $1,000 to Sen. David Craven, co-chair of the joint legislative committee that oversees state economic development dollars.

At least $400,000 went to Eastridge Distributors. Eastridge’s address matches the Charlotte home address of Mitch Sprengelmeyer, a former Clemson teammate of Belk. Felts would not say who owns Eastridge but said it provides management services and was instrumental in securing partnerships with NGBs.

Warren, McCarthy, Sprengelmeyer, and a half-dozen other consultants did not respond to requests for an interview. 

The N.C. Sports Legacy Foundation used state money to pay three of its board members for “legal and professional fees.” Pettit, the chairman, received $110,000. Board members Charles DePaolo and Robert Burton received $75,000 each. None responded to requests for an interview.

Nonprofit board members can be reimbursed for expenses but generally shouldn’t receive compensation, said David Heinen, vice president at the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits. And he said it could be a conflict of interest for board members to receive legal or other fees from the nonprofit.  

Belk and Koerner largely stayed out of state politics until they began receiving state money. Belk has contributed over $15,000 to state campaigns since June 2023, including $1,000 to Dave Boliek, the Republican candidate for state auditor, which is separate from the state budget office.

Boliek told The Assembly he has known Belk for years but was only generally aware of his Olympics project. Boliek would not comment on how USPC has spent state money but said if he is elected auditor, campaign contributions would not influence his work. 

“Once you get into office, particularly in the State Auditor’s Office … you leave your party affiliation, you leave the politics at the door, and you come into the office and you do your job on behalf of the citizens of North Carolina,” Boliek said.

He said it’s OK for state dollars to go to for-profit companies and nonprofits, as long as there is a good return on the investment. 

The Assembly briefed Democratic state Auditor Jessica Holmes on its findings. Holmes said she could neither confirm nor deny an ongoing or future audit. She added, “Any entity that would receive, or has received, $55 million would certainly be of interest to the Office of the State Auditor.” 

Caught in the Dream

Steve McNally joined USA Taekwondo in 2014 as the nonprofit’s spokesperson, crossing the Atlantic from a similar job with a rugby team in Manchester, England. 

McNally, now the CEO of USA Taekwondo, learned quickly that the U.S. government doesn’t invest in Olympic athletes’ training like his home country and many others do. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee is funded by corporate sponsors and through the sale of broadcast rights. McNally said his athletes weren’t getting the support they needed.  

In 2022, USA Taekwondo moved its training headquarters from Colorado Springs to the U.S. Performance Center. McNally said the national governing bodies, “apart from the very top level, are crying out for help, crying out for support. Not necessarily financial support, but that world class rehab, strength and conditioning, nutrition, psychology that we now have for all of our athletes.”

While the team and its CEO are located in Charlotte, USA Taekwondo’s governing body and about half of its 18 employees remain in Colorado Springs. McNally didn’t want to ask employees whose jobs could be done remotely to move across the country.

He speculated that other governing bodies may not have moved to Charlotte to avoid risk. “What if I look like a fool, because I moved them out there, and then it goes away?” McNally said. 

When the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee moved to Colorado Springs in 1978, most of the governing bodies located their offices nearby. In October, the committee can buy itself out of a 30-year economic development agreement with the city of Colorado Springs. 

USPC says it’s making progress and holds out women’s field hockey as an example. U.S. Women’s National Team co-captain Amanda Golini talked with The Assembly in June before working out in Charlotte. She joined the team in 2017 straight out of college, the year after the team reached the quarterfinals in the Rio Olympics. 

In 2019, 8,000 miles away from home in Bhubaneswar, India, the team lost their qualifying matches to India. The defeat was a career-ender for many on the team. Those who stayed and new players who joined were scattered across the Northeast. 

In isolation intensified by the pandemic, the team decided it was critical to train together and searched for a new home. They took up USPC’s offer, joining when there were only seven pieces of equipment and just a handful of employees to support the athletes.

“It was us, buying into the vision that the USPC had, and working with what we got,” Golini said. “And then them following through on their promises slowly, little by little.”

By August 2023, the entire team relocated to Charlotte. Their daily three-hour training sessions now could be done together, helping the women build trust, and they could work with the sports scientists and medical and psychological staff at the center.

For Golini, the decision paid dividends. 

“Going to the Olympics with this group is super special because we were not supposed to be here, so to speak. And I think a lot of people probably didn’t believe that we could get to this stage.”

The team qualified for the Paris Olympics, earning one win and one draw in five matches, a good showing for a young team that didn’t qualify four years ago. 

“It all comes back to who’s servicing the athletes right now? Who’s actually taking care of them?” Belk said of his venture. “USPC definitely is doing that.”

Correction: This article originally understated the amount of state money that’s been spent on construction and equipment.