Academics

Our mission is to provide our student athletes with the highest caliber of college preparatory education while teaching them invaluable life skills, which will serve as a solid foundation for the rest of their lives. We do all of this while still providing them with the highest level of youth soccer training. Our commitment to our student athletes is to academically prepare them for application and acceptance to the finest universities in the nation and physically prepare them for the finest teams in the nation.

Our commitment to providing an extraordinary education for our students led to a search of the most outstanding charter schools in Arizona. Our objective was to find a charter school that not only met our academic standards, but also had administrators and a faculty committed to assisting students in becoming all they can be. We were also determined to find a group of educators who were aligned with the core values – integrity, hard work, respect, discipline, selflessness, goal attainment, and commitment to excellence – that have been ingrained into the DNA of Grande Sports Academy.

Our teachers for the upcoming academic year are bright, talented and extremely well educated individuals who will foster an excitement about learning in our academy students. A low student-to-teacher ratio will ensure that each student obtains individual attention. In addition, faculty members will be available to provide special sessions to students needing or wanting additional assistance. Our 58,000 square foot, state-of-the-art training and conditioning center, adjacent to the dormitories, houses sixteen classrooms equipped with the very latest technology for multimedia instruction for our academy students.

Our goal is not only to provide the highest caliber of youth soccer training in the nation but also to provide our students with mentors who will have a lasting and positive impact on their values and goals. Our training and educational process will teach teamwork, responsibility, discipline, humility, self esteem and leadership. Our students will not only be able to compete at high levels of soccer, but will also learn, grow, and mature in a nurturing, friendly, and academic environment, giving them the personal foundation to become successful in their lives.

The off-campus education provided for our students during the 2010-2011 academic year led our senior students to be accepted at Georgetown, Clemson, Indiana, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Oregon State, the University of Denver, and the College of Charleston.  During this 2011-2012 academic year, we already have had students commit to the University of Michigan, Dayton, New Mexico, Virginia, UCLA, and Air Force Academy.  In addition, we have many players on college coaches radars with many of them making multiple visits to Casa Grande throughout this 2011 fall semester.

Post-Graduate Program

Grande Sports Academy has been contacted by a number of athletes who are graduating from high school in 2012 that are interested in enrolling in the Grande Sports Academy post-graduate program. These are athletes who have considerable soccer talent and ability and want to have the opportunity to take advantage of our advanced programs and work with our coaches for a year before making the decision to play professionally or go on to college. Student athletes devoting a year to our post-graduate program have the opportunity to grow more skillful on the pitch and become stronger physically and mentally over the course of a year. They also have the opportunity to benefit from taking additional courses at the academy and to undertake tutoring for higher level performance on their SAT examinations. This grants our post-graduate students the opportunity to improve the academic level of their ultimate university destination.

Grande Sports Academy has also been contacted by numerous college coaches who have accepted athletes into their universities but want the athletes to have the benefit of working with the Grande Sports Academy coaching staff prior to arrival on campus. Athletes can take college-level courses at nearby Central Arizona College and the credit hours may be transferable to their future university. Several of these athletes will be participating in the 2011 program.