WHAT IS WRONG WITH ATHLETICS AT NORTH PORT HIGH SCHOOL?

Francesco Abbruzzino, The Uncensored Report, LLC

 

 

Anonymous

 

As we close out the 2020-2021 high school athletic season in North Port, it has become apparent that a change may be needed in the leadership at North Port High School, specifically in the office of Athletic Director (AD).  Why the AD? Athletic directors (ADs) generally oversee all aspects of an athletic program, including hiring coaches, scheduling, budget preparation, promotion, compliance, and facility management.  As such, if we see a systemic problem within the athletic program, instead of looking at the individual coaches within each sport, it makes sense to look first at the AD.

 

Tony Miller is in his fourth year as AD at NPHS.  He is a great guy.  Incredibly personable, he has a great relationship with the students and personal relationships with the coaches who he manages.  Unfortunately, the performance of the individual sport programs has been disappointing.

 

For this discussion, I would like the take a look at the three sports which dominate the regional interest of the State of Florida: Football, Baseball and Basketball. Specifically, I will look at the boys programs but in reality, we see similar trends through the equivalent girl programs.  The data has been pulled from MaxPrep (https://www.maxpreps.com/state/baseball/florida.htm).

 

The Football Team has been rather bad, never coming close to exceeding a 50% winning percentage over the past four years. Their overall winning percentage for the four years has been 25%.   Probably a lowlight was this past season which saw the team having to cancel their final two games due to their inability to field enough players. In their final two games before the season was cancelled, NPHS was shut out 47-0 at Fort Myers Bishop Verot and 35-0 at home against Lemon Bay.  Admittedly, this season was the first season for Coach Matt Pryer as he was handed the program from Coach Brian Hatler so the jury may still be out after only one season.

 

The Basketball Team had some momentum in 2018 and 2019 but fell off the cliff in 2020 and 2021 with a combined 29% winning percentage. Current Coach Ryan Powell inherited a strong program from Coach Curt Allen in the 2017-2018 season, with Allen’s team peaking with a 76% winning percentage in the 2013/2014 season. The future does not appear bright with 50% of the current team graduating this year and the last four JV teams supporting a 26% aggregate winning percentage.

 

The Baseball Team has struggled equally bad during the tenure of Coach Miles Mayer. Admittedly, Coach Mayer’s Teams over the last four years have surpassed both the football and the basketball teams but have yet to break the 50% mark for winning percentage.

 

Coach Mayer’s immediate predecessor, Dan Pavlue, had a higher winning percentage of 48% including a winning season in 2014. He is now the head coach at Baraboo High School in Wisconsin. Coach Pavlue’s predecessor was Rob Rowe who had the best teams in NPHS history including reaching the regional four times, and winning it once and making it to the final championship game two other times. Coach Rowe remains at North Port but is clearly not one of the AD’s favorites despite his proven ability to coach winning baseball (full disclosure, I previously was associated with Coach Rowe and hold him in the highest regards).
 

 

Since the baseball team has come the nearest to breaking the 50% winning percentage mark over the last few years, we should take a more detail look at this squad.  This year’s squad was filled with juniors.  Unfortunately, they failed to break the 50% mark, losing their final six games down the home stretch.

 

So what does the future look like for NPHS Baseball? As a crystal ball, many would argue you look first at the performance of the Junior Varsity Team.  Obviously, the JV serves as a conduit of players into the varsity.  A successful program starts with kids playing in a strong Little League program then progressing to the JV and finally to the varsity.

 

If you look at the performance of the NPHS JV over the past four years, you see an ominous sign. We see a steady decline of winning percentages over the past four years to the exceptionally poor performance of 2021.

 

 

So what is happening? Anyone who ventures to Atwater Park during the Spring will see hundreds of future MLB’ers running around with their bat and gloves. Youth baseball in North Port has a higher participation rate than either football or basketball. It certainly does not appear to be a problem with participation of the youth.

 

Successful programs will usually have active participation of the local high school coaching staff in camps and training programs for the younger kids as an enticement. Participation of the current coaching staff in these types of programs seems to be lacking when compared to other local high schools and to the NPHS winningest baseball coach, Rob Rowe.  The results; many talented baseball players who would normally attend NPHS go instead to Venice, Riverview, Booker, etc. But worst, many recently have opted to attend Imagine School at North Port. Their program seems to be growing over the past several years.   If we again look at the JV performance specifically between NPHS and ISNP, we see something very alarming.   Over the last three games between the two JV programs, we see ISNP beating NPHS handily 7-2 (Feb. 18, 2020), 12-2 (Feb. 19, 2021) and 9-2 (Mar. 5, 2021). If nothing changes, little bitty ISNP will soon become the dominant baseball program in the town of North Port.  One huge difference between the two programs, ISNP head coach is a constant fixture at the Atwater Little League fields.

 

So what does this all mean?  The AD has failed in his responsibility to hire effectively a staff that can compete in the area sports arena. As stated before. Tony Miller is a nice guy. He just seems to lack the vision and ability to develop North Port. With Principle Brandon Johnson leaving the school, it is probably the right time to seek a new AD who can provide a winning vision and find the right coaches for North Port High School.