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Gym Is Pride Of Academy At The Lakes

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By EDDIE DANIELS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 22, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - When the trivia question pops up years from now asking who scored the first points inside the Academy at the Lakes gym, the answer might be a bit unusual.

At the 5:48 mark of the first period, second-grade teacher Marisa Varriale scored on a breakaway layup. It wasn't in a game against another school, but in Thursday's Faculty vs. Students basketball game. The event christened the court inside the newly completed gym.

The facility, which took 18 months from inception to completion, came with a minimum price tag of $3.1 million and includes locker rooms, coaches offices, a weight room, a stage, parking, a reconfigured turn lane into the facility and a nearby science lab.

"We're an interesting school in that we're relatively small, but with big ideas and big execution," said Cynthia Martin, chairwoman for the Academy at the Lakes board of directors. "We don't let our size stop us from doing anything and it's sort of an underlying message in everything we do - the Academy Way. So when you see this gym, we could have put up just a tin building, well, no. ... It reflects who we are and a sense of community."

The need for the gym was born out of the Land O' Lakes Recreation Center reaching capacity, which served as the home for Academy at the Lakes basketball and volleyball.

In July 2006, the board of directors approved the gym and met weekly - at times more than that - during the school year, summer and holidays. Parents were given a say in everything with the gym, Martin said.

The funding came from a mixture of fundraisers and philanthropic sources as well and according to Martin, the gym's price tag did not raise student's tuition.

"I've been the athletic director just this year, but I've been affiliated with the school for about 12 years now through my kids being enrolled here," Athletic Director Mark Arbet said. "For us, it's a huge amount of growth and it, in a way, for lack of a better term, validates the school. We have our own facilities."

Next on the athletic side is a softball field, which also will be used by the baseball team, to be built nearby through a partnership with Myrtle Lake Baptist Church.

This season, the school's first assigned to districts in the Florida High School Athletic Association, Academy has collected a district championship in golf, while attaining district runner-up trophies in girls basketball and boys and girls soccer.

That said, the project, which has touched on the academic, athletic and fine arts realms, is a reminder of what the school is trying to achieve.

"We are a beautifully positioned school in that we have strength in academics, arts, athletics and community," Martin said. "We put an emphasis on citizenship and creating students of character. We're kind of proud of that."

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