Seven Oaks Classical is joining IHSAA: 'The next obvious milestone' for growing program

About this time in the year 2027, Seven Oaks' varsity basketball teams will be heading off for their very first experiences with Indiana's March Madness.

Students wear uniforms in the classroom, so why not wear them after school as well, thought headmaster Stephen Shipp. The school in Ellettsville opened in 2016 as a K-8 public charter school and continued growing until it had a full high school.

The latest freshman class numbers is nearly 50, with a total of 109 high schoolers. And with that growth came the opportunity to begin adding extracurricular activities at the junior high and high school level. That's not only good for the students but also great for student retention.

With the programs in place and showing good participation numbers, the Firehawks took on the challenge of becoming a member of the Indiana High School Athletic Association. Seven Oaks began the now three-year probationary period last summer.

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"What's been exciting has been this pattern of consistent, sustainable growth of the school population as a whole," Shipp said. "With that, the growth in programing and athletics for us are certainly always something that we've wanted to invest in and wanted to see grow as a school.

"Look at the school's mission statement. It all revolves around training hearts and minds. The primary vehicle for that is the core education, the academic education. We think sports have an incredibly important part to play and that's especially evident on the character, the 'heart' side of the equation."

Seven Oaks started with cross country and started adding volleyball, boys and girls basketball and track. Wrestling and co-ed soccer are the latest to come on board. Individual sports such as golf, tennis or swimming are also possibilities down the road.

So athletic director Jacob Box, who came to the school in 2021, has plenty to do when it comes to hiring coaches, lining up officials and keeping schedules lined up, as well making sure Seven Oaks is adhering to IHSAA rules and guidelines. Scheduling was eased a bit last year when Seven Oaks joined the Southern Roads Conference, of which Lighthouse Christian is also a member.

"We have some athletes who are naturally gifted and some who are newer to sports and just getting their feet wet," Box said. "It's still growth in stages and we're starting to see, especially as we're carrying grades up, we're starting to see athletes at the high school level who have played on our middle school teams and I think it's improving our caliber."

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Building an athletic culture

Seeing that continuity is important in many ways, from team camaraderie to seeing that athletics are making the school an attractive place to stay as students get older.

"We think, sure, it can help retain students," Shipp said, "if they see an opportunity here that are like what they might experience somewhere else or maybe an opportunity that they might enjoy here that they might not get somewhere else.

"In turn, those students have something to offer to the school. So we think of athletics as a win, win."

As a teaching tool, athletics can do positive things for students they might not necessarily find in the classroom but could end up helping them there.

"You discover what you thought was your limit might not actually be your limit," Shipp said. "And there is actually a kind of reward for hard, steady effort. You can get better, faster, stronger and can carry that mentality from sports into the mix as well."

Joining the IHSAA will do plenty to push Seven Oaks' athletes in that direction.

"It's not just culture building, but the kinds of character building that can happen through athletics and competition," Shipp said. "So as we've grown our athletics program, this seems like the next obvious milestone.

"One that's both backwards looking in the sense that it honors the investments of our earlier athletes and coaches and also forward looking because it's signaling that, yes, we are deeply committed to growth and excellence through our athletic programing. And we envision a bright future athletically."

Building the athletic program

Seven Oaks is located in the old Ellettsville High School and the Firehawks' volleyball, basketball and wrestling programs call the same gym home where the Eagles won their last boys basketball sectional in 1960.

It gets full quickly when they're taking on local foes, making for a great home atmosphere. At the same time, having just one gym can make things tricky at certain times of year.

"Scheduling basketball practices is interesting," he said. "We're here until late at night with teams utilizing the gym. We also utilize gyms nearby in churches and the SportsPlex."

The cross country has a home course mapped out at Flatwoods Park by Box. The track team is always on the road. Soccer will use Karst Farm Park.

Box has had good luck finding quality coaches. The Firehawks were fortunate to get a wrestling coach who had coached in Illinois for several years and recently retired as a teacher. One of the first camps they held drew over 30 kids.

"Where we've also seen growth is in the coaching staff," Shipp said. "More and more coaches of high caliber are coming in with a vision of building a program. It's with full awareness that we are very much in a building phase, just by virtue of the youth of our program."

Seven Oaks understood the importance of laying the foundation for the high school programs by getting its students involved at younger ages. This spring, for instance, former Owen Valley standouts Antonio and Harry Marshall will hold basketball clinics at the school.

"We're trying to create that early exposure, that early involvement down into the lower grades," Shipp said.

Seven Oaks preparing to step up

Seven Oaks was careful to make sure, before it signed up, it could continue long-term to make the commitments that IHSAA membership demands. Parental support for the move and involvement is also strong.

Joining the IHSAA means adhering to the association's rules, filling out all the proper forms and paperwork such as physicals and eligibility for transfers who might have played sports at another high school, as well as offering at least two sports, one each for boys and girls, each season.

The IHSAA provides mentors to walk schools such as Seven Oaks and Mooresville Christian through the process. But LCA, which became a fully participating member in the 2020-21 school year, and former AD Josh Henson were also a big help to Box.

"It's good having Lighthouse in our conference and being a smaller school similar to us," Box said. "We had a good relationship. He was a huge help with any questions I had.

"Especially with the three-year period, we wanted to make sure we could function as a fully approved school before we even sought that. At the same time, it gives us time to sharpen our program."

For instance, Box knows there will be a need to upgrade the strength and conditioning program.

The three-year period also gives the Firehawks teams a chance to acclimate themselves to the level of play they'll need to compete at the sectional level. Being in the SRC helps with that. There are several other schools with under 200 students in the immediate area, and many more smaller private and charter schools in the Indianapolis area to help fill out schedules.

"We want to find schools we can be competitive with, where our spirits won't be demoralized," Box said. "At the same time, we can't play all schools that won't allow us to improve."

Now, the waiting. Maybe the hardest part and the toughest to take for the high schoolers who will just miss the debut. But they will always be remembered for laying the foundation and raising the expectations for those first sectional contests.

"Realizing that in three years, many of them will have the opportunity to compete in the IHSAA is exciting to them," Box said. "The lull of three years is kind of a bummer.

"I played in five sectional championships and lost every single one of them, but just being an IHSAA athlete myself, just getting that opportunity throughout the entire season, it's just something additional to work toward."

The Firehawks will soon be ready to leave the nest.

"Any student who has been here two or three years can't help but see tangible expressions of growth," Shipp said. "The size of the teams, the quality of coaching, the equipment. I think IHSAA membership is just another boost to show that we're a program on the move.

"Things are happening. Yeah, it's an exciting time."

Contact Jim Gordillo at jgordillo@heraldt.com and follow on X @JimGordillo.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Seven Oaks Classical joining the IHSAA is the 'next obvious milestone'