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While Woodbury’s program is centered around athletics, it also stresses the
importance of getting good grades.
that keeps it all together;” she also provides the meals, buffetstyle.
34 Port St. Lucie Magazine
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“They basically graze 24 hours a day.”
When son Reese turned 12 recently, the players sang Happy
Birthday to him in seven languages. (Reese, by the way,
played on a championship 19-and-under team at age 5.)
Starting out, Woodbury’s team was enrolled in Florida
Virtual School, using part of The Nation as a kind of computerized
one-room schoolhouse, but Woodbury never shook
the dream of combining all of the positive aspects of the total
school experience.
Driving to meet a college recruiter last year, Woodbury
noticed a sign for Barnabas Christian Academy at 1860 Fountainview
Blvd. A friend had mentioned the school to him,
and now he’d stumbled upon it. Stopping and introducing
himself to Administrator Bill Reed, he sensed an immediate
connection.
“I felt not only that collaboration could benefit us both, I
felt that it should,” he says.
Woodbury explained his desire to add an academic component
and to grow the international aspect to The Nation,
which the academy could facilitate. Woodbury, in turn, could
help the school by mentoring the basketball coach and team.
“He had impeccable connections,” Reed says. “And I was
impressed by his integrity. His business expertise has been an
asset to us as well.”
It has been a match, it would seem, that was made in heaven.
STUDENT SACRIFICES
Woodbury and General Manager Liz Bell (a Maine program
alum) moved their office to the school in November
2017, eventually enrolling 16 of their local and international
players. By the end of the first semester, 15 players had made
the honor roll. They’ve participated in chapel, a skit, the
school’s spelling bee and are learning to play violin. One
player was crowned homecoming king.
“The school embraced the boys right off, and they em-
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