IMG Academy is a
preparatory boarding school
A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...
and sports training destination in
Bradenton, Florida
Bradenton ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Manatee County, Florida, Manatee County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the city's population is 55,698.
History
Late 18th and early 19th centuries ...
, United States. IMG Academy is set across over 600 acres and features programs consisting of sport camps for youth athletes, adult camps, a boarding school, including a
post-graduate
Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree.
The organization and stru ...
/
gap-year program, events, professional and collegiate training, group hosting, and corporate retreats. IMG Academy is owned by
Endeavor.
History
Nick Bollettieri
Nicholas James Bollettieri (July 31, 1931 – December 4, 2022) was an American tennis coach. He pioneered the concept of a tennis boarding school, and helped develop many leading tennis players during the past decades, including Andre Agassi, ...
founded the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in 1978. Sports company
IMG img or IMG is an abbreviation for image.
img or IMG may also refer to:
* IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group ...
purchased the academy in 1987.
IMG acquired the youth division of the
David Leadbetter Golf Academy in 1993 and added programs for soccer and baseball in 1994. Hockey and basketball programs were added in 2000 and 2001, respectively, and by 2002 the IMG campus had expanded to . IMG Academy suspended its hockey program in 2003. Football was added in 2010, as well as lacrosse. Track & field and cross country were added in 2013.
IMG Academy currently sits on of land, and in 2011, IMG paid $7.5 million for an additional adjacent to the current campus for future expansion.
In 2014, IMG purchased an additional . The land borders IMG's west campus, where the sports performance academy is undergoing a $198 million expansion.
The IMG Pendleton School was founded in 1999 as a co-educational,
college preparatory
A college-preparatory school (usually shortened to preparatory school or prep school) is a type of secondary school. The term refers to public, private independent or parochial schools primarily designed to prepare students for higher education ...
school for athletic students. In 2012, the school changed its name to "IMG Academy". It delivers both academics and athletics.
In 2021, the school
faced off against
Bishop Sycamore in which they won in a 58–0 rout. Bishop Sycamore received scrutiny after the game and its existence was questioned.
Programs
Boys' and girls' tennis programs
![Tennis Courts IMG Academy - Bradenton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Tennis_Courts_IMG_Academy_-_Bradenton.jpg)
IMG Academy tennis programs offer year-round tennis camps ranging from one to five weeks in length and are led by director Rohan Goetzke. The campus has 35 outdoor hard courts, 5 indoor hard courts, and 16 green
clay court
A clay court is one of the types of tennis court on which the sport of tennis, originally known as "lawn tennis", is played. Clay courts are made of crushed stone, brick, shale, or other unbound mineral aggregate depending on the tournament.
...
s.
In 1987, thirty-two academy students or former students were in the
Wimbledon
Wimbledon most often refers to:
* Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London
* Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships
Wimbledon may also refer to:
Places London
* ...
draw and twenty-seven were in the
U.S. Open. Famous past students include
Andre Agassi
Andre Kirk Agassi ( ; born April 29, 1970) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He is an eight-time major champion and an Olympic gold medalist, as well as a runner-up in seven other majors.
Agassi is the second of five men to ac ...
,
Monica Seles
Monica Seles (; hu, Széles Mónika, ; sr, Моника Селеш, Monika Seleš; born December 2, 1973) is a retired professional tennis player who represented Yugoslavia and the United States. A former world No. 1, she won nine Grand Sla ...
,
Jim Courier
James Spencer "Jim" Courier (born August 17, 1970) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He won four major singles titles, two at the French Open and two at the Australian Open. He was the youngest man to reach the singles finals of ...
,
Kei Nishikori
is an inactive Japanese professional tennis player. He is the second male Japanese player to have been ranked in the top 5 in singles (after Jiro Sato), and the only one to do so in the Open Era. Nishikori first reached his career-high singles ...
,
Anna Kournikova
Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova ( rus, Анна Сергеевна Курникова, p=ˈanːə sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvnə ˈkurnʲɪkəvə, a=Anna_kournikova.ogg; born 7 June 1981) is a Russian former professional tennis player and American televisi ...
,
Serena Williams
Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American inactive professional tennis player. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...
, and
Maria Sharapova
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova ( , ; rus, Мари́я Ю́рьевна Шара́пова, p=mɐˈrʲijə ʂɐˈrapəvə, a=Maria_sharapova.ogg; born 19 April 1987) is a Russian former world No. 1 tennis player. She competed on the WTA Tour from 2 ...
.
Football program
IMG announced the
John Madden
John Earl Madden (April 10, 1936 – December 28, 2021) was an American football coach and sports commentator in the National Football League (NFL). He served as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978, who he led to eight pla ...
Football Academy in March 2010 and held its first camp from June 4–6, 2010. The football program offers a residency program and year-round camps ranging from three days to five weeks in length and was previously led by former
NFL quarterback
Chris Weinke
Christopher Jon Weinke (born July 31, 1972) is an American football coach, former professional football player, and former professional baseball player. After spending six years in the Toronto Blue Jays minor league baseball system, he enrolle ...
. The academy fielded a high school football team for the first time in 2013. In 2013, MaxPreps called IMG Academy the "nation's top high school football facility." Kevin Wright was named head coach in 2015 after Weinke accepted a position as quarterbacks coach with the then-
St. Louis Rams
The St. Louis Rams were a professional American football team of the National Football League (NFL). They played in St. Louis from 1995 to the 2015 season, before moving back to Los Angeles, where the team had played from 1946 to 1994.
The arr ...
. Wright guided the program to its first undefeated regular season (9–0) in 2015.
Boys' and girls' soccer programs
IMG Academy offered an academy soccer program and year-round soccer camps from 1999 to 2017. IMG Academy was home to
U.S. Soccer's full-time residency program for the United States' U-16 and U-17 men's national teams. It was integral in developing the United States' top youth
soccer
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
prospects. The original idea of the residency program was to give elite players the opportunity to train in a professional environment as most
MLS
Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...
clubs did not have a substantial youth academy system in place prior to 2009. The Bradenton Academy grew from an initial twenty players to thirty in 2002 and then to forty in 2003. The program was split into a U-16 squad and a U-17 squad. The girls program was a member of the Girls Academy League.
A typical day for the student-athlete at Bradenton consisted of academic classes in the morning followed by sports training in the afternoon. Students at the academy took accelerated courses and graduate high school a year early, making the players who do not turn pro immediately some of the most heavily recruited prospects in
college soccer
College soccer is played by teams composed of soccer players who are enrolled in colleges and universities. It is very prominent in United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and as well as in South Africa and the Philippines. The United Kingd ...
. The academy traced its roots back to
Project 2010 Project 2010 was a blueprint that United States Soccer Federation executives created in 1998 to ensure that the U.S. men's national soccer team could become a plausible contender to win the FIFA World Cup by 2010. The Q-Report, the jumping-off poi ...
which highlighted ways U.S. Soccer could make the senior men's national team a legitimate threat to win the
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...
by the end of the decade. Two programs that were born from Project 2010 were
Generation Adidas
Generation Adidas is a joint venture between Major League Soccer and U.S. Soccer aimed at raising the level of young professional soccer talent in the United States. The program, sponsored by Adidas, offers professional-ready players in the U. ...
(previously called ''Project-40'') and the Bradenton Academy. The academy was started in January 1999 with the backing of
IMG img or IMG is an abbreviation for image.
img or IMG may also refer to:
* IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group ...
and
Nike
Nike often refers to:
* Nike (mythology), a Greek goddess who personifies victory
* Nike, Inc., a major American producer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment
Nike may also refer to:
People
* Nike (name), a surname and feminine give ...
, but was closed in 2017 due to the proliferation of U.S. Development Academy programs.
Baseball program
IMG Academy has an academy baseball program and year-round camps, in addition to summer Wood Bat Leagues.
Boys' and girls' basketball programs
IMG Academy's
postgraduate
Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree.
The organization and stru ...
program played in their only appearance in the 2016 National Prep Championship in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
. Among the teams were Brewster Academy,
DME Academy
DME Academy is a private athletic sports training academy based in Daytona Beach, Florida for post-graduate basketball players. During its first year in existence, DME Academy's National Team, The DME Lakers, reached the National Prep Champions ...
, Elev-8 Sports Institute, Fork Union Military Academy, Hargrave Military Academy, IMG Academy, Northfield Mount Hermon School, and more. The head coach of IMG's national high school team is Sean McAloon, who previously was the head coach at
St. John's College High School in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
Its basketball alumni include
Dallas Mavericks forward
Dwight Powell
Dwight Harlan Powell (born July 20, 1991) is a Canadian professional basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Stanford Cardinal and is a member of the Canadia ...
and
Orlando Magic forward
Jonathan Isaac
Jonathan Judah Isaac (born October 3, 1997) is an American professional basketball player for the Orlando Magic of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for one season for the Florida State Seminoles.
Isaac ...
, the 6th overall pick of the 2017 NBA draft. In 2017, IMG Academy had its first two selections to the McDonald's All American Game:
Trevon Duval was selected to the boys game and Rellah Boothe was selected to the girls game. In 2018,
Anfernee Simons
Anfernee Tyrik Simons (born June 8, 1999) is an American professional basketball player for the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played prep basketball for IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. He became the fi ...
entered directly from the academy to the
2018 NBA Draft, becoming the second player in the academy's history to do so and the first American to enter and be selected in an NBA draft directly after graduating from high school since the league first implemented age restriction rules in 2005
During the preparation for the
2017 NBA Draft, the IMG Academy hosted their first ever draft combine. The Professional Basketball Combine was held as an alternative (mainly for seniors) to measure their abilities and potentially give them the chance to enter the
NBA, if not allow them the chance to play in the
NBA G League
The NBA G League, or simply the G League, is the National Basketball Association's (NBA) official List of developmental and minor sports leagues, minor league basketball organization. The league was known as the National Basketball Development ...
or even overseas, with nearly every participant that year doing exactly that. Currently, four players that participated in the event signed
two-way contract
A two-way contract is a professional sports contract that stipulates that an athlete's salary is dependent upon the league in which the athlete is assigned to play. This is opposed to a one-way contract that would pay the same salary regardless of ...
s to enter the NBA properly, with eight of them going overseas and 11 players entered the G League. The event would be held once again in 2018, gaining more popularity that year with the participation of former
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
player and current professional player
LiAngelo Ball
LiAngelo Robert Ball (born November 24, 1998) is an American professional basketball player for the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA G League. Ball played for Chino Hills High School in California, where he won a state championship and achieved nati ...
.
Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, the entire
WNBA 2020 season was held there. Under a plan approved on June 15, the shortened 22-game regular season would be held
without fans present.
Boys' and girls' lacrosse programs
IMG Academy has an academy lacrosse program and year-round camps. IMG Academy launched a high school team in 2012, featuring a new women's program made in 2018. Notable alumni include
Tehoka Nanticoke. Prior to that, IMG Academy hosted their first full-time lacrosse student-athlete, Matthew Xirinachs, starting in September 2010. Xirinachs went on to join the Drexel men's lacrosse team in fall 2011.
The women's team hired head coach Jeff McGuigan in July 2019.
Track and field and cross country program
IMG Academy has an academy track and field and cross country program and year-round camps.
Notable alumni
Since opening in 1978, IMG Academy has trained hundreds of
Olympic
Olympic or Olympics may refer to
Sports
Competitions
* Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896
** Summer Olympic Games
** Winter Olympic Games
* Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...
and professional athletes, including those in the
NBA,
NFL,
MLB
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
,
MLS
Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...
,
ATP,
WTA,
PGA Tour
The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...
and
LPGA Tour
The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekl ...
.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:IMG Academy
Children's sport
Sports in Florida
Sports academies
Summer camps in Florida
Education in Florida
1978 establishments in Florida
Educational institutions established in 1978
Premier Lacrosse League partnerships
Bradenton, Florida