Founded in 2013, Savannah Classical Academy has made great strides in serving Chatham County in its unique position as a tuition-free, public charter school fostering academic excellence for grades K-12.
It’s right there in its mission statement:
“The mission of Savannah Classical Academy is to provide every child with a classical and academically rigorous education while instilling a commitment to civic virtue and moral character.”
As for athletics, SCA has been putting in the work to build a program piece by piece while experiencing growing pains that come with the territory.
In its relatively short history, the Spartans have fielded high school teams throughout the school calendar, from girls' volleyball and boys and girls cross country in the fall, to boys basketball in the winter and girls and boys track and field in the spring, as well as an esports team over the school year.
There’s also a club sport, boys volleyball, in the spring, with the school hoping it becomes a GHSA-sanctioned sport like the others.
They all started from scratch, whether the seeds were planted in the lower school or middle school (grades 6-8) or the upper school (9-12). Incremental steps progressed from practices to introduce the sport and gauge interest, to a few games, to a junior varsity and a full-fledged varsity seasons.
All from a student body that has an advertised maximum enrollment of 640 for K-12, and currently has close to 80 for grades 9-12.
“We already know our level of success any time we put a team on the court is profound in that we’re making it happen,” said Nick Lavery, who, since the 2019-20 school year has worn many hats as varsity and JV boys basketball coach, girls volleyball coach, boys volleyball coach, a middle school coach, and athletic director.
Lavery has passed the torch for the boys' basketball varsity and JV to Blaine Loveless this school year, but remains the head of both volleyball programs.
Athletic director Kevin Woodbridge said that even though SCA is in the GHSA’s smallest classification at Class A Division II, it still plays schools with student populations three and four times bigger.
“It's not an excuse and we don't use it as a crutch but more of a badge of honor,” said Woodbridge, in his third year as the school’s first full-time athletic director and also the new cross country coach.
“We are a charter school, so it’s all lottery based. We don’t have a feeder program or a middle school that sends their kids to us. I think it’s even more rewarding when we do have the successes we do because we’re getting who we get and we’re turning them into a team and developing them on our own.”
Participation encouraged
Woodbridge estimates that about 50 students are active in the volleyball, basketball, cross country and track and field programs. There’s the inclination in a small school community to contribute in some way through extracurricular activities, that everyone and anyone is needed, experience not required.
If teachers and fellow students see students showing athletic ability, they might encourage them to try out for a team – emphasis on try.
“It’s not a pressure; I think it’s more of a pride thing,” Woodbridge said. “The kids love competing. We’ve got a lot of two-, three- and even four-sport athletes. Kids are open to trying things.”
Lavery compares it to a marathon to develop novice athletes in the sixth grade to good players by the time they are seniors.
“It’s absolutely like, ‘I’ve never played before.’ That’s fine. C’mon on. We’ll show you how to play,” Lavery said.
Senior David Wilson had played volleyball in physical education class but never for an organized team. He tried out for the first Spartans boys volleyball club team a few years ago.
“I went out there to have fun,” Wilson said. “It was a cool experience playing volleyball.”
Wilson is getting the full experience at SCA and is one of those four-sport athletes with cross country, basketball, track and field and boys volleyball.
“I do feel that’s the kind of vibe our school gives off,” Wilson said. “It’s not like you can’t do it. You can always try. If you don’t know what to do, you can always learn and keep learning and get better at it. To the point it’s like, ‘We didn’t even know you hadn’t played the sport. We thought you played since you were little.’ ’’
Wilson is an SCA lifer who can count on two hands the number of students who were part of his first-grade class at the school and remain with him as members of the Class of 2026.
Wilson, whose brother Davin is a second-grader at SCA, likes the high academic bar set for students.
“I feel like we’re more strict on schoolwork, but I like that,” said Wilson, who plans to study computer science in college. “I feel that it betters us to be more hard-working.”
His course load this semester is art, U.S. history honors, AP statistics and, through dual enrollment, a reading and rhetoric class at Savannah Tech. He also has a part-time job and, as noted, plays sports throughout the school calendar.
Greater opportunity
Wilson has been part of the basketball program since sixth grade, the varsity since his freshman year and became a starter as a junior. The now 5-foot-10 forward believes he got a lot more playing time as a freshman and sophomore because he is attending a small school.
“I feel like I would have gotten less opportunity (at a bigger school), but honestly, the more opportunity that gave me, it gave me a chance to evolve and get better as the years go by,” Wilson said. “I don’t think that’s the worst thing for me to be here and get the opportunity I got.”
The basketball team, like other Spartans squads heavy on youth and inexperience and short on depth, has taken its lumps over the years. Wilson sees progress in laying the foundation for future Spartan success.
Any win is cherished that much more.
“If we win, we get happy. If we lose, we go hard at practice the next day,” Wilson said. “That’s what we do. That’s all we can do.”
A winning culture needs time and consistency, which the coaches might not have with students coming from all parts of Chatham County and for varying numbers of years.
There is promise in the successes, such as the middle school girls volleyball team’s run last season to the county semifinals, and a few student-athletes in past years getting offers to play in college, and current standouts such as senior boys basketball player Trey Lamar and freshman runner Gerald Pineda-Meave.
The student-athletes have the work ethic and the resilience, as Lavery described it, to improve and battle through adversity.
“It’s also something we talk about a lot,” Lavery said. “… there’s stuff to learn when you win; there’s stuff to learn when you lose. You just happen to learn a lot more from the losing side. Just continuing to keep the spirits up, the life lessons takeaways, the resilience.”
Importance of gym on campus
Savannah Classical Academy, housed in the historic former St. Pius X High School on Anderson Street and three-story addition for its upper school, is proud of its gymnasium that makes volleyball and basketball perfect fits.
The Spartans have a dedicated room for esports and have some access to off-campus facilities for track and field and courses for cross country, but launching more field sports is a tougher proposition.
Still, the middle school added soccer last school year, and SCA has a cheer squad for grades K-5 that eventually could translate to the high school level. Girls' basketball will test the waters at the middle and high schools this winter at the introduction stage.
There is also interest in starting a bass fishing team this spring, and girls' flag football could be in their future, though not at the expense of girls' volleyball without supporting numbers.
Woodbridge, a former college baseball player and head coach, would love to bring baseball on board, naturally, but that’s a field sport requiring a large roster. As for football, that’s not on the table.
Asked to measure the progress of Spartans athletics from its origins to its aspired destination, Lavery calculates it at 20 percent of the way there.
“We’re still just scratching the surface,” Lavery said. “Even looking at our (teams’) records, that would probably be true (20 percent). But the other part of me that’s in here, that sees the improvement, would put that number higher, like 50 percent. Just based on growth that continues at the clip we’re going.
“If I had a .500 team, I could be over the moon,” he said in terms of records. “That means every single night, we might win, we might lose. The competitor is me is like, no, I want the state championship.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Savannah Classical Academy Athletics Department
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