On-campus stadium, sports complex in sight for Foundation Academy

WINTER GARDEN Foundation Academy Athletic Director David Baginski and Lions football coach Brad Lord each summed up the private school’s moving forward with plans for an on-campus stadium in two words: It’s time.

“The campus has grown dramatically,” Baginski said. “Plus, over the past two years, we have really engaged with the parents and got a lot of feedback from them.”

That feedback from the campus community and a sense of timeliness has led to the Winter Garden-based school recently petitioning successfully to build a sports complex on its South Campus on Tilden Road. Preliminary plans show the school altering existing fields — currently four softball fields and a soccer field — to make room for an on-campus stadium, track and field house. 

Baginski said the plan is to build over two of the four softball fields and half of the soccer field, with the other half being retained as a warmup and practice area. Foundation also has a full-sized practice field on the west end of its South Campus. 

Placing the stadium where the softball fields currently are, on the east side of the school’s campus alongside State Road 429, is a move that avoids conflicts with neighboring housing complexes concerning lighted fields — and creates some built-in exposure for the school and its sponsors.

“We feel like it’s a great location for a stadium simply because it is located right along (State Road) 429,” Baginski said. “So, for any business that would want to partner with our school and be part of that program, it gives great exposure for those businesses.”

Baginski and Lord stressed value beyond just a stadium for football, too.

Currently, Foundation Academy’s track team does not have an actual track on which to practice, so the addition of a track around the field would be valuable. The field also would be used for soccer, and the planned field house could help alleviate the problem of existing locker rooms and a weight room that are not big enough for the school’s growing sports programs.

Of course, one of the biggest pluses is that the school — which currently plays football home games at Walker Field in Winter Garden — could have a true home field.

“It’s packed at Walker Field; we have great concessions there,” Lord said, acknowledging that the arrangement has worked out well for his program. “It’s just, it would be great for our school, spirit-wise — for every sport — to have a stadium. … We sort of miss that at Walker Field — I don’t think our team thinks of that as ‘our house.’”

Baginski said the school hopes to have the new sports complex constructed in time for the fall of 2017 and dirt to begin moving by Christmas. Following the zoning approval from the city, Foundation now will turn its attention to planning and fundraising.

Lord, who has led the football program to its first playoff appearances in 2014 and 2015 despite having to travel for its home games, says that the on-campus facility is something that is worth the wait.

“What I respect about Foundation is they want to do it right,” Lord said.

Contact Steven Ryzewski at [email protected].