VIDEO: Area Coast Sports activities Corridor of Fame’s Dr. Jim Richey Established Japanese Florida State as Athletic Juggernaut

DR. JIM RICHEY: 2016 SPACE COAST SPORTS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE

ABOVE VIDEO: Dr. Jim Richey acknowledged a necessity on the Area Coast when he was named president of Japanese Florida State School in 2012. The faculty’s 11 varsity applications are essentially the most within the 24-member Florida School System Actions Affiliation. Lots of the groups are nationally ranked with the ladies’s soccer group twice enjoying for the NJCAA nationwide championship. (Editor’s notice: This video was produced in 2016)

2016 SPORTS DEVELOPMENT INDUCTEE

SOCCER IS ‘BIG DEAL’

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Dr. Jim Richey acknowledged a necessity on the Area Coast when he was named president of Japanese Florida State School in 2012.

“I knew that Brevard County cherished sports activities throughout the board,” he mentioned. “I additionally knew that soccer was a really massive deal on this space, so including a soccer program was a excessive precedence.”

Richey added varsity applications in males’s and ladies’s soccer at EFSC, in addition to males’s and ladies’s tennis and ladies’s golf.

The faculty’s 11 varsity applications are essentially the most within the 24-member Florida School System Actions Affiliation. Lots of the groups are nationally ranked with the ladies’s soccer group twice enjoying for the NJCAA nationwide championship.

Numerous video games are broadcast dwell on WEFS-TV to sports activities followers throughout Central Florida and streamed nationally through webcast on the faculty’s sports activities web site.

“That TV station hits 11 counties and three.2 million folks doubtlessly,” Richey mentioned. “It’s nice for the Titan model, for the establishment to completely make the most of a very good product – our groups and nice services – with an expert TV station.”

EFSC PITCH BEST IN FLORIDA

The recognition of the soccer applications additionally created one other want: A spot to play as a substitute of sharing house on the Brevard County Parks and Recreation advanced in Viera.

“We knew we actually wanted a house,” Richey mentioned.

So, he constructed an athletic advanced on the Melbourne campus with new or upgraded services for soccer, tennis, softball, baseball, basketball and volleyball.

The Titan Soccer Advanced has hosted NJCAA nationwide tournaments and Florida highschool state championships which have pumped thousands and thousands of {dollars} into the native financial system via customer spending.

Richey mentioned the added varsity sports activities broadens the attraction of the faculty not simply to athletes however to different college students as effectively.

“It’s essential that when college students come to a school or college, they discover one thing that they’re interested by,” he mentioned.

“A kind of issues, in fact, is athletics for folks to actually really feel snug. In the event that they really feel snug proper from the get-go, they’re much extra more likely to wish to be right here, work laborious and graduate.”

FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE SPACE COAST SPORTS HALL OF FAME, name 321-615-8111 or e-mail [email protected]

CLICK HERE to see all of the members of the Area Coast Sports activities Corridor of Fame.