BOOM!

Freshman Ciera Clark knocked in two home runs for the 'Hounds against Martin
County on Tuesday, April 4th as the team and community celebrated Coach Roger Mathews 500th career victory, placing him second in Florida for wins by an active softball coach and in the top 1% nationally.

April 5, 2017 – Fort Pierce, FL – When Lincoln Park Academy Head Softball Coach Roger Mathews arrived at Greyhound Field in the Lawnwood Sports Complex on Tuesday night he knew it was going to be special. But just how special this night would end up surprised even Mathews.

Although Mathews and his Lady Greyhounds were scheduled to take on an always strong Martin County Tigers team, the real story was the milestone that Mathews and Company reached right at the start of Spring Break – or so we thought.

Let’s set the stage.

Stand out 8th Grade Short Stop
Layne Chesney got things started for the
Greyhounds with a dinger over the
 fence in Centerfield in the first inning.

Mathews is nothing short of a legend when it comes to coaching softball. In Florida, he is second, only behind Kathy Finnucan or Winter Park Trinity Prep, for wins by an active coach and third for all-time wins, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.  

Nationally Matthews is ranked 22^nd of the 5,517active high school softball coaches putting him in the elite top 1%.

A diverse crowd of friends, former players, and school district employees, led by Troy Ingersoll the Chairman of the School Board and E. Wayne Gent the Superintendent for St. Lucie Public Schools were on hand to honor the man they don’t just call “coach”, but that they call “friend”.

LPA Athletic Director, Ms. Jill Cory, who coordinated the event, spoke of how she has known Mathews for 25-years,  at first calling him a rival and now calling him a true friend.

Superintendent Gent reflected on how as a coach at Fort Pierce Central, he and others would marvel at achieving 100 wins and never thought that 500 wins were even possible, while School Principal Henry Sanabria spoke of the tough love that Mathews is famous for.

Senior Madison Walsh
puts the ball over the
centerfield fence for the
Greyhounds third home
run of the first inning.

And Ingersoll, who is also the youth minister at Westside Church where Mathews and wife Karen attend, spoke of how dedicated he is to the kids in St. Lucie County.

But, it is the people that Mathews has mentored over the past 29 seasons that bring a tear to his eye as he has watched them grow and start families of their own, some of who had made their way to Greyhound Field to pay tribute the ‘ol ball coach.

There was Taylor Strickland, a star pitcher for the Lady Greyhounds who led the team to the State Final Four a few years ago, Jennifer Pottorff a successful small business owner and assistant softball coach at John Carroll, Paul Langel a Captain in the St. Lucie County Fire District, college instructor and Mathews trusted assistant coach as well as many others, including much of the current John Carroll High School Softball Team.

So as this year’s Greyhound team made their way to Foundation Academy in Central Florida for a doubleheader on March 11^th they knew that something special was about to happen. Coach was sitting on 498 wins and they desperately wanted to do whatever was needed to get him to 500.

Yet, they knew it would not be easy as they had defeated Foundation last year by the slimmest of margins. But this year’s team is a group of young up and coming student-athletes who are driven by success and have responded well to that tough love Principal Sanabria had spoken about.

So well in fact that the ladies tossed back to back 14-0 not hitters on that magical March day to help Mathews reach the milestone of 500 wins.

But now with Spring Break lasting a week and no home games scheduled until April 3^rd the community and his players would have to wait to honor their coach.

And wait they did.

A lightning delay caused everything to be pushed back for over an hour and the first pitch didn’t come until well after 6:30.

LPA Pitcher Catlin Comer gets all of this
pitch in the second inning for the
Lady Greyhounds fourth
home run of the night.

Sophomore pitcher Caitlyn Comer made quick work of the Tigers in the top of the first setting up the surprise that no one saw coming.

LPA’s first batter was eighth-grade standout shortstop Layne Chesney who patiently waited for “her pitch” knocking the big yellow ball over the Centerfield fence to the delight of the crowd, her teammates and especially Mathews who shouted “you see what happens when you wait on it”, from the third base coaches box.

Two batters later ninth grader Ciera Clark knocked in the first of her two home runs for the night prompting Langel to yell “BOOM” from the first base coaches box.

The next batter, Senior Maddison Walsh, then put a ball way over the fence in Centerfield, just as a bench player from Martin County was retrieving Clark’s dinger causing Mathews to say in disbelief “I’ve never seen anything like this in my 29 years of coaching”, while “BOOM, BOOM” could be heard from the first base side of the field.

In next frame “BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM” was heard as this time pitcher Comer connected for a home run.

From Left: School Board Chir Troy Ingersoll, LPA Principal Henry Sanabria, Coach Roger Mathews and LPA Athletic Director Jill Cory  

And so, a night that was to be special for one reason turned into a night made special by a group of young ladies looking to give a true legend one of his best memories from a 29-year, 500 plus win coaching career!

CENTENNIAL’S STEPHEN LEPORE INTERVIEWS WAYNE GENT, SUPERINTENDENT OF ST. LUCIE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Centennial's Stephen Lepore with Wayne Gent, Superintendent of
St. Lucie Public Schools

March 28, 2017 – Fort Pierce, FL – St. Lucie West Centennial Student-Athlete Senior Stephen Lepore conducted an on-camera, live interview with Wayne Gent, Superintendent of St. Lucie Public Schools. The interview, in conjunction with Treasure Coast Sports Journal, took place during the Cobra Relays Track Meet in Fort Pierce at Lawnwood Stadium this afternoon.

Stephen who suffers from Autism Spectrum Disorder, is a sprinter on the school's Unified Special Olympics Track Team. He submitted a list of questions to the Superintendent prior to the interview, which is a standard journalistic practice when doing a non-investigative story.

Stephen will now edit the entire interview and provide Treasure Coast Sports Journal a finished copy which will be published on the company’s social media assets and internet site. A copy will also be provided to St. Lucie Public Schools and SLW Centennial High School for their use.

Superintendent Gent made a special trip to Lawnwood Stadium in the middle of a busy work day to participate. He commented afterward that, “Stephen did a really great job and came up with some excellent questions”.

Look for Stephens Interview with Superintendent Gent in the very near future on www.TCSportsJournal.com or on our Facebook, Twitter of Google Plus social media sites.

CITY OF PORT ST. LUCIE PLACES ITS ECONOMIC PROBLEMS ON THE SCHOOL SYSTEM – SHAME ON THEM!

May 1, 2017 – Treasure Coast, FL: As parents and adults we do everything possible to ensure that our children will be successful, with the most important thing being our children’s education, which is the responsibility of the entire community – the village if you will. Our children’s education starts at home as we teach them their first words, how to walk and how to have respect for others. And we try and teach them that bullying, intimidation and physical violence is never good.

That is why it is so disappointing to hear Port St. Lucie Mayor Greg Oravec say that he is “not scared to take off the jacket, roll up the sleeves, get out the brass knuckles and get serious” with what he calls the St. Lucie School Districts “lackluster performance”.

School Board Vice Chairwoman Dr. Donna Mills
has personally recruited 150 area individuals
who come from all walks of like to participate
in the School Districts Speakers Bureau program.

Oravec, the onetime fired City Manager of Port St. Lucie who was either at the helm or the Chief Assistant City Manager when the city entered agreements and provided funding for failed projects like VGTI and Digital Domain costing the city hundreds of millions of dollars, and the Torey Pines project (also in Port St. Lucie) which recently lost millions in state funding for failing to create promised jobs, has shifted the responsibility for the city’s lagging economic growth to the easiest target – the school district.

And Oravec isn’t alone. Councilwoman Stephanie Morgan also blames the school district as does the Tea-Parties Cathy Townsend who sits on the County Commission and called the school district the “weakest link” stating that they (the schools), “don’t think outside the box”.

So, let’s just go ahead and unbiasedly lay all the facts on the table and let the public decide if it’s the school system that needs an overhaul or the politicians who we only happen to see when the media is around.

First and foremost, we need to understand that these politicians are clueless as to how schools are graded. And that is understandable – it’s not their area of expertise, it’s not the business they have spent their whole lives in.

Florida’s school grading system was created by former Governor Jeb Bush as both a political stunt and an economic boost to his family. Bush, the founder of the state’s first charter school – a public school run by a private entity that is funded by your and my taxpayer dollars – saw an opportunity to create a statewide standardized testing system to measure student outcomes and assign a letter grade to public school in Florida.

That test, previously known as the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test or FCAT, and now known as the FSA, measured a child’s proficiency in subjects such as reading, math, and science and other factors such as learning gains, end of course exams, graduation rates and others to come up with a school grade.

The idea was to identify schools that needed additional assistance, such as Bush’s Charter School which had a failing grade and was closed by the Miami-Dade School District several years ago.

But, like anything political, the system was and still is flawed. Schools are expected to hit a moving target set by the Florida Department of Education. The initial grading of the FCAT was contracted out to a company in which Bush’s brother, Neil, was a principal, earning that company millions of taxpayer dollars. But most importantly, the test results were the result of one day of testing that did not take into account any other factors from throughout the school year.

Schools that received A’s or improved their grade from one year to another were and still are rewarded financially, while schools that struggle and need the help the most were and still are punished.

Oravec, Morgan and Townsend are quick to blame the school system for the cities lack of growth and are throwing the county’s largest employer – one that has steadily maintained nearly 5,000 jobs – squarely under the big yellow school bus. Their uneducated statements are an insult and a slap in the face to the teachers and other employees of the district that have dedicated their lives to helping children.

Perhaps shedding some light on the true facts will help this trio understand that it takes time and the efforts of an entire community to raise up a school system.

For example, while the State’s high school graduation rate hovers around 85%, the graduation rate in St. Lucie County increased to nearly 89% (88.6) last year. And this despite the county having a poverty rate that is a full nine percentage points over the state average (67/76).

Our trio of bandits makes no mention that while the state as a whole saw 65% (according to the Tampa Bay Times) of its schools drop a letter grade in the 2015-2016, only 29% of St. Lucie’s schools fell a letter grade during the same period according to state data.

But the one variable that is not measured by any type of school grade is community involvement.

While I was at a breakfast last week to recognize men and woman that have given their time to talk with school children, telling their stories and showing them that there is a way out of the poverty and high crime rates that affect all of St. Lucie County I couldn’t help but notice that Oravec, Morgan and Townsend were nowhere in sight. Yet the Mayor of Fort Pierce, the Superintendent of Schools, the City Manager of Fort Pierce, school principals, business leaders, ministers and others all took time out of their day to attend the event at Fort Pierce Westwood High School.

The program which was created by School Board Vice Chairwoman Dr. Donna Mills has been years in the making as others have tried and failed to implement it. Known as The Speakers Bureau, Mills has personally recruited 150 area individuals who come from all walks of like to participate.

Before trashing our schools and berating our teachers, administrators, school staff and most importantly the children of this community Oravec, Morgan and Townsend should give what St. Lucie School’s Superintendent Wayne Gent calls the Greatest Gift  - Time.

As Fort Pierce Westwood High School Principal John Lynch said – the people in this room are the “Rock Stars of Teachers of Children”.

Yet Oravec, Morgan and Townsend never heard those words – because they were not there, there were too busy rolling up their sleeves, taking off their jackets, putting on those brass knuckles all in an effort to do what they have been known to do best – intimidate others by bullying and picking fights!