A Field of Middle School Dreams

The 2023 Major League Baseball season begins March 30^th, with the San Francisco Giants facing the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. This Opening Day game may conjure memories of the first time you swung a baseball bat or heard the roar of parents in the stands as a young athlete. As parents, we are now transporting our children to and from practices and cheering them on at games, all the while hoping the lessons they learn on the field will shape them into great human beings. And of course, we would also like to see them hit a grand slam. The challenge of balancing character and competition in team sports is one that Commissioner Blake Schilly has committed to tackling in our Middle School League.

Schilly comes to Great Hearts with a rich sports background. “I worked in the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Organization from 2004 until 2018,” said Schilly. “I was essentially in charge of the Spring Training business operations from 2008 through 2018. I also spent some time simultaneously working in the Grand Canyon University Athletic Department. I was there when they were Division II and when they transitioned to Division I.”

Schilly joined the Great Hearts Athletic Department this year as the Commissioner of the Great Hearts Middle School League (GHMSL). As Commissioner, Schilly oversees our growing Middle School League that began 16 years ago with six Great Hearts Academies. Now, all 12 of our Arizona upper schools participate in the league along with approximately 20 other schools across the Valley, making GHMSL one of the largest Middle School Leagues in the state of Arizona. Read more about how the league started in the article, Celebrating a Thriving Middle School League.

“I would say that we strive to hold everybody to a higher standard from a character standpoint than you’ll find at most leagues,” said Schilly. “I view it as a developmental league for our schools. We want to make sure that they’re learning the Great Hearts way to participate and compete at the 5th through 8th grade level. We want them to be ready to compete at the high school level and make sure they are as developed as we can possibly get them.”

Schilly desires for the league to be a great asset for our academies and hopes to help foster a great culture for our middle school athletes. He is no stranger to classical, high-achieving charter schools. As a student, he attended Jefferson Academy in Broomfield, Colorado. “We were the first charter school in the state of Colorado to win the State Championship. It was my senior year, and I was one of the starting five on the basketball team that won that title.”

“You have a lot of student athletes in our league that this is their first time ever competing in this sport. But also, you have athletes who have played a lot of sports and have played their whole life. This is a place for multiple levels of competition where people can play and it can facilitate them all,” said Great Heart Arizona Director of Athletics, Jon Rickey. “Since we started the league, my goal has always been to show our young athletes what commitment means and what excellence on the field means, and most importantly, what character means. It’s very competitive in that we have playoffs, we have championships, some people make it, and some don’t. But we also have a good developmental side where we have our B teams and our C teams. It’s to really form a way to get students ready for their high school experience.”

“I interviewed all the athletic directors in July, and I was basically asking them, ‘What are the one to two things that we can do to just make this league the best asset that it can possibly be to Great Hearts?’ And it was pretty much unanimous that we really try to make the scheduling process as seamless and efficient as possible,” said Schilly. “That’s been my number one priority this school year. Just making sure that the scheduling is as on point as we can make it. We’ve made strides but you know there’s always room for improvement.”

“Scheduling is a very big challenge. In basketball, for example, we have A, B and C levels and there’s 86 teams, so we’re trying to schedule about 450 – 500 games in a very small timeframe,” said Schilly. While scheduling is no small feat with the growing number of teams, Schilly said he welcomes the challenge if it means more students get the opportunity to compete and play.

During the 2022 fall sports season, GHMSL had seven tackle football teams, 22 flag football teams, a whopping 48 volleyball teams, 13 golf teams, and 17 cross country teams. 2022-23 winter sports hailed 21 baseball teams, 12 softball teams, and 56 soccer teams. The 2023 spring sports season came with nine swim teams, 15 track and field teams, 10 tennis teams, and a record breaking 86 basketball teams. In all, GHMSL had 316 teams in the 2022-23 season.

We are excited about this great league and look forward to updates in upcoming seasons. Do you have a story or know of a story that you would like to see featured at Great Hearts?  Please contact jmoore@greatheartsamerica.org