Athletic News

Temecula Prep growing up                  By: TOM SHERIDAN - Staff Writer
                  Academic-oriented school trying to make its impression in
                  athletics, too
                  TEMECULA -- Take Rancho California Road east past wine
                  country, and the vineyards and tasting rooms give way to
                  gently rolling hills that seem miles and miles from
                  civilization.

                  Out there, where hot air balloons share the skies with the
                  twin-engine planes from French Valley Airport, the 18-acre
                  campus of Temecula Prep has been taking shape the last few
                  years. Prior to that, the eight-year old school bounced from
                  site to site around Temecula.
                  "We're just happy we're not moving again," said principal
                  DiAnne McClenahan. "The school district has been great to us,
                  but we've just outgrown everything they have given us."

                  Now that the public charter school serving students from
                  kindergarten through 12th grade has found a home, it has begun
                  to set down roots. That is particularly true of the school's
                  athletic department, which has grown from three sports to nine
                  since the school settled on its Abelia Road site in the summer
                  of 2006.

                  Athletic director Brian Martin is charged with overseeing the
                  expansion of the program to include eight-man football and
                  boys and girls basketball. If it seems like Martin is coaching
                  all of those sports, well, he is.

                  But things are different at Temecula Prep, with its 124
                  students in grades nine through 12. That is roughly the number
                  of kids that show up for the first day of freshman football
                  practice at Murrieta Valley or Vista Murrieta.

                  Martin cut his teeth as a coach and teacher at Escondido San
                  Pasqual High, which had 20 times more students than Temecula
                  Prep.

                  "That was a machine," Martin said of San Pasqual's sports
                  program. "This is more like an individual discovery. The
                  school is so focused on the kids in the classroom -- and we
                  know them all -- that here, there is less separation between
                  academics and athletics than there is (at San Pasqual)."

                  Not unexpectedly, there has been no shortage of trials,
                  tribulations and growing pains at Temecula Prep.

                  The all-purpose floor in the basketball gym experienced rain
                  damage recently and had to be repaired, just months after it
                  was initially laid down.

                  The football team won one game, and very nearly pulled out
                  another against Sierra Madre Academy, but a last-second
                  touchdown which would have won the game for the Patriots was
                  ruled to have come after the clock expired, and the school's
                  protest was denied by the CIF Southern Section.

                  The boys basketball has taken its lumps so far this season,
                  although the girls team got off to a surprising 2-0 start.

                  "It is a struggle to change the mentality of, 'I'll show up if
                  I can to practice,'" Martin said. "But it's been changing
                  quickly because they recognize that this is a varsity program
                  that requires commitment. Just like a lot of their other
                  endeavors on campus."

                  As a public charter school, Temecula Prep has the freedom to
                  set its own academic course. Its curriculum is based on the
                  Hillsdale model, which upholds the tenets of classical
                  education.

                  "Classical school is very much the education you would have
                  gotten in the United States prior to the 1940s," McClenahan
                  said. "It's as old as Greek and Roman times. Our founding
                  fathers would have been brought up on a classical education."

                  The system is working as Temecula Prep, which has the highest
                  API of any high school in the Temecula Valley Unified School
                  District (814) and was recently recognized by U.S. News &
                  World Report as a bronze medal school in its rankings of
                  America's top high schools.

                  Bryanna DeWitt-Vaughn is a Temecula Prep student-athlete. She
                  has competed in volleyball, basketball and track. These days,
                  her sights are set on a Naval Academy appointment and she is
                  processing the necessary paperwork and gathering her letters
                  of recommendation.

                  "First of all, I came from a really small school,"
                  DeWitt-Vaughn said. "There were like 10 kids in the whole
                  school, and then I went to a public school. When I went out
                  for sports, I didn't make any of the teams. I wasn't used to
                  that type of environment.

                  "Then I came here and it was easier to participate in those
                  types of sports, because there aren't as many people to choose
                  from. So it's easier to, like, make captain of the track team
                  your sophomore year. And you're close with your teammates both
                  in and outside of your sports activity."

                  Daniel Smith had a big year for the Patriots' football team,
                  scoring 19 touchdowns, and also plays basketball. He is a
                  natural athlete with the potential to play beyond high school.
                  Smith spent one semester at Temescal Canyon where he said he
                  found out too late about football tryouts, and tried out for
                  the drum line instead.

                  "Sports is kind of the backbone of what I do," Smith said.
                  "Without sports, who knows what I would be doing. It keeps me
                  busy, keeps me from getting bored."

                  Teammate David Wooding sees a more direct connection between
                  athletics and academics.

                  "Playing basketball is such a workout," Wooding said. "It just
                  gets me going and makes me feel so good. It makes me feel so
                  healthy. And I can apply that in my classes. When I feel good
                  in my classes and I'm not tired in my classes, it's just so
                  much easier to do."

                  It may be a while before any CIF championship banners are
                  hanging in the Temecula Prep gym. That doesn't deter Martin.
                  He's busy working on getting ready for when sports such as
                  boys volleyball and baseball are approved by the school's
                  board.

                  Already, a parcel has been set aside just west of the gym for
                  a baseball field.

                  Martin thinks the demanding college-prep curriculum and
                  budding athletic program are a good fit.

                  "There's nothing more common in athletics than practice, and
                  practicing excellence," Martin said. "It's like I tell my
                  players, 'It's not a get-by session, it's a get-better
                  session.' This is just like the classroom. Set your goals and
                  achieve them. It translates."

                  -- Contact Tom Sheridan at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2649, or
                  tsheridan@californian.com

                  About Temecula Prep

                  School opened: 2000

                  Winchester campus opened: 2006

                  Upper school students (grades 9-12): 124

                  Student-teach ratio: Approximately 15-to-1

                  Academic Peformance Index: 814

                  Athletic director: Brian Martin

                  Sports offered: boys golf, boys and girls track, boys soccer
                  (co-ed), 8-man football, boys and girls basketball, boys and
                  girls volleyball, cheer.

                  Principal: DiAnne McClenahan

                  Curriculum: Hillsdale model emphasizing classical education
                  concepts. Students are required to take French and Latin.

                  Honors: U.S. News & World Report bronze-medal high school
                  .