Many of you Plant City High students, parents and alumni are probably eager to see how the school’s athletic programs fare in the 2015-16 school year, as the recent shuffling of personnel has impacted the Raiders family at its core. I see no reason for anyone to be anything but optimistic right now.
Much has been said about the football program, of course, which I believe to be in good hands even with the departure of some of the coaches. More will be written in the 2015 Football Guide, which you’ll get to read later in the month, but so far I haven’t seen or heard of anything discouraging.
I’m particularly excited to see what the boys basketball team can do from this point on. The school probably couldn’t have hired a better coach for that team’s rebuilding project, as Billy Teeden’s body of work at East Bay suggests, and I would love to see a greater interest in boys basketball — one that will probably pick up with some wins or at least visible progress being made in every game — throughout the area.
Most recently, though, PCHS found itself needing to hire a new athletic director. Traci Durrance did an awesome job with the Raiders programs, and made a positive impact with every athlete and coach I’ve heard from. I, too, enjoyed working with her on sports stories for the past year and one half, and I have no doubt she’ll continue to be great at Tomlin Middle.
I had the pleasure of speaking to the school’s new athletic director, Tim Leeseberg, after I got back from Buffalo this week, and I think the athletic programs are still in good hands. There’s potential for several PCHS programs to make a big splash this year, and his excitement to see those Raiders teams go far already matches that of anyone in town. That, I believe, is one of the keys to being an effective AD, and it was something Traci put on display at any given school sporting event.
There will definitely be some changes that PCHS fans won’t enjoy this year, as several of the programs have lost key athletes and need to either rebuild or work around the fact. That’s how it usually works. But, even if an in-game product isn’t quite up to par with that of previous years, Raider fans can at least see that the foundation for everything appears to be just fine now.