- July 24, 2025
-
-
Loading
Loading
When BJ Ivey was a student at Riverview High, nearby Sarasota's reputation was as a baseball school.
Now the Athletic Director at Sarasota, Ivey’s trying to rewrite that narrative.
This year showed the Sailors are turning into more than just a one-sport school.
Ivey’s boys basketball team won the first regional championship in 56 years. The softball team won its first regional title in a decade.
And the baseball team proved it’s not going anywhere. It bounced back from one of the worst seasons in program history to win 22 games and make it to the regional semifinal round.
Ivey is optimistic those success stories are only the start, and it’s no accident.
Sarasota County Schools reported a 92.5% graduation rate for the 2023-24 school year — the highest in district history.
Sarasota High made the most notable improvement, graduating 6.7% more students than the prior year to reach a 93.2% graduation rate. It was the school’s best improvement in graduation rate in five years.
The administration is being recognized for its excellence, too.
Assistant Principal Lindsay Gallof is the 2024 Assistant Principal of the Year and Principal Ryan Chase, who joined Sarasota High in 2023, is the 2024-25 Principal of the Year.
“I just think Sarasota High’s school culture as a whole is truly remarkable,” Ivey said. “It’s not just athletics. A lot of really good things are happening, and a lot of good people are doing good work. It’s elevating everything that’s taking place. It’s not just with one team.”
Ivey is being recognized for his work, too. The county, which celebrates a teacher’s impact on their students, peers and the community, awarded him the 2023 Ripple Effect award.
Ivey elevated to athletic director in January 2024, and the effect he’s made in athletics is hard not to notice.
It’s not a rare occasion to find a coach in the stands at Sarasota supporting another team, and that starts during the school day.
Ivey said at any point in the day, anyone who stops by his office could wind up finding several coaches, such as girls basketball coach Sara Nuxol, football coach Anthony ‘Amp’ Campbell, baseball coach Greg Mulhollen and golf coach Barry Cheeseman, game planning.
“One, we’re all really good friends,” Ivey said. “We’re all like-minded. We all have similar coaching philosophies. We share ideas and we feed off of each other. It’s definitely collaborative, but we also support each other. Coach Campbell is at everything. He’ll go from spring football practice to the softball field and then the track. A lot of our other coaches are the same way.”
Though it’s clear that athletics at Sarasota are on the rise, there are still some areas that are in need of further improvement.
The next step for Sarasota is to improve its football program.
The Sailors have made the regional playoffs just nine times in the past 30 years, with one appearance in the regional final round in 2004.
Most recently, the Sailors won a regional quarterfinal game in 2022, but that stands as the program’s only playoff win since that 2004 season.
Ivey’s first day on the job tasked him with hiring a new football coach. Former Sailors head coach Josh Phillips accepted a job with Wagner College and Ivey didn’t hesitate for his first call.
When a fifth grade Ivey was a ball boy for the football team at Riverview, Campbell was a star on the football team. When Ivey asked for an autograph, he received a message.
“He talked about hard work, consistency, overcoming adversity,” Ivey said. “All of these things as a fifth grader, I probably didn’t understand. I followed his career, and he broke his neck at Michigan State and ended up coming back and playing. When that happened, I said, ‘Hey Mom, do you still have that helmet?’ I read it, and everything he wrote, he embodied. That floored me and always stuck with me because it’s a profound statement of who that man is.”
The on-field results haven’t shown yet, but Ivey is confident that it’s only a matter of time before they do.
The football team finished 3-7 last season in Campbell’s first year.
If the success of other teams on campus is any indication, however, those losses might be far less frequent.
