Santa Rosa rolling out 1st middle schools sports teams this fall. What sports are in play?

After over a decade of demand for middle school sports in Santa Rosa County District Schools, the school board unanimously approved its first three sports that will kick off in the 2023-24 school year.

Track, cross country and three-on-three basketball will be available for boys and girls to join and compete against other middle schools within the county. They will not be competing against other counties just yet and the practice schedule will likely not be daily. But it is a start, according to Santa Rosa County District Schools Middle School Director Floyd Smith.

Middle school students enrolled in K-8 schools in the county will also be able to join the teams.

“The priority of the district is to continue to increase opportunities for students (boys and girls),” Tonya Shepherd, spokesperson for Santa Rosa County District Schools, wrote in a statement. “These sports were chosen to implement first due to the availability of facilities.”

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Smith said the addition has been in the works for a while, as he found documents dating back to 2012 examining the feasibility of middle school sports.

However, one of the biggest hurdles, aside from finances, has been having enough facilities available for the middle school athletes to practice and compete.

“All of our middle schools have been built long ago with the newest one, Avalon Middle School, was opened maybe over 20 years ago. They were built without athletic facilities other than a track. Having middle school sports has always been a challenge because we don’t have the facilities," Smith said.

Middle school administrators have worked together to find a way to make the most of the infrastructure that's currently in place.

“We decided that, ‘Let’s see if we can do some sports that maybe the facilities are not as big of a deal,’” Smith said. “We are going to have at least two events for each of those activities in the upcoming school year.”

The decision was a victory for middle school sport proponents such as Kristopher Long, cybersecurity instructor at Locklin Technical Center and founder, CEO and owner of Gulf Coast Hoops, who started an online petition to bring middle school sports to Santa Rosa County in the 2016-17 school year that gained 940 signatures.

However, Long was told that based on a study conducted by the school district in 2012, adding the sports at the middle school level would have been financially unstable.

“Middle school sports is a quality idea with some major restrictions,” then Superintendent Tim Wyrosdick told the News Journal in 2016. “At present, it would not be in our financial plan to commit to at this time. The expense associated with the program would take away from dollars we commit to the classroom and teachers.”

When the conversation resurfaced in September 2022, the district started to take steps to see what possibilities exist, but lacked concrete plans.

Community advocates, such as Stephanie Yelton, the University of West Florida women's basketball coach, pushed to bring athletics to middle schoolers, saying that what they gain through being part of a team goes beyond athletic ability.

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"We're missing an opportunity for our kids to be involved in something special, and something associated with their schools to build school spirit, community spirit," Yelton told the News Journal in 2022. "But to also build some young people into a stronger community as they get older and graduate from high school."

Smith said he is excited to be able to finally give Santa Rosa County middle school students that outlet to belong to. He also hopes that sport participation will have a positive effect on the students' middle school experience all around.

“We hope that it leads to more engagement for our students to feel a part of their school that they attend,” Smith said. “We’re hoping that all of that ties together to hopefully increase the student achievement for these students who will be participating, because they will feel attached their school. … Hopefully do better academically, better attendance, better discipline and behavior in school.”

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Santa Rosa middle school track, basketball coming in 2023-2024