By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
Parker Solowey remembers when he was a young kid, wanting to be so good at soccer that he would kick a ball against the walls inside his house for hours, sometimes waking up family members in the process.
He didn’t have an outlet where he could go and train for three hours a day, while also going to school. Though he’s only 25 years old now, times have really changed in the last 10-to-15 years.
College coaches in many sports have turned to high level tournaments and academies to recruit talent. One of the newest is SALA — or Scholar Athletes Leadership Academy, which is comprised of multiple accredited school campuses offering specialized education and sports training for kids in grades 4 through 12. The SALA South campus is located in Pitman at the Total Turf Experience complex, run by Jerry McGough.
“We have 24 kids who have gone on to play professional soccer. This is a different world. I’m not sure there are a lot of schools like this — that’s an amazing statistic,” McGough said. “Are we at the IMG level? Not even close. Nor do we want to be — yet. We’ve made a huge investment to build walls to make a second story (at Total Turf Experience). We’re at capacity and ready to take it to the next level. We’re going to offer golf, we’re negotiating for field hockey.”
The SALA school at Total Turf has really taken off in the last couple of years and features nearly two dozen soccer players and about a dozen or so basketball players, a lot of whom are currently at the eighth-grade level.
What is SALA, and how is it different from kids playing high level club soccer or basketball?
Well, the competition is comparable to club level soccer or AAU basketball, but what makes SALA unique is it’s kind of a one-stop shop for high-level athletes, or those aspiring to be. Parents drop their kids off at around 8 a.m. and from there it’s anything but a typical middle school or high school day. Kids receive a couple hours of sports training — including things like yoga, strength and conditioning and recovery — then break for classes. After lunch there are more classes plus more sports training. Athletes at SALA are getting about 15 hours per week of specialized instruction, plus the online curriculum is supported by in-house teachers, meaning students can learn at their own pace while also getting hyper-focused help from a teacher whenever they need it. Kids are also asked to perform “leadership duties” which might include things like cleaning the classrooms, wiping down cafeteria tables, vacuuming, etc.
“We don’t play in a traditional season. What we’ll do is hand pick games that are good for our kids to showcase themselves,” said Solowey, SALA’s boys soccer coach and a Delsea Regional High graduate. “So we’ll play against the New York Red Bulls Academy, local top academies, we’ll play against some of the top high schools, like St. Benedict’s Prep, which has been nationally ranked for about 10 straight years now; Christian Brothers Academy, Germantown Academy — we try to show them what the best high school teams and academies are like.
“We are essentially a one-stop shop with the educational piece we provide.”
“It’s unique vs. a traditional public school setting in that here the kids are self-paced in the curriculum. They have an online component that they work through, but at the same time we have education staff here, like myself, who do additional support with the kids,” said teacher Daniel Sloane, who holds a master’s degree in education. “We’re able to work with them in a 1-to-few or 1-to-1 setting where we are able to give them very targeted and tailored instruction that is specific to that individual student’s needs. I have a seventh-grader who is highly advanced who is working on high school algebra. He’s advanced, he’s able to self-motivate and is able to work at a pace that is accelerated from some of his peers. I’m able to support him in that and he’s not held back in the classroom, where he might be in a traditional setting.
“And if we have a student who is struggling and needs extra support, I’m able to spend that time with them and really scaffold the instruction for them so that they are able to excel and succeed, where they might not have that kind of support in a traditional school in a setting of 30 students,” Sloane explained.
Including its founder, Samuel Gough, SALA has 25 staff members, including teachers, coaches and support staff. It’s not for everyone, however, as it is more geared toward higher level athletes. The costs are similar to many private schools in South Jersey, in the $16,000 to $18,000 per year range.
“After 10,000 hours you become an expert at whatever you’re doing. Think about it this way — these kids train for three hours every day. (On a normal travel team) the schedule is they train two days a week, maybe play a few games on the weekends, then you start the new week over,” McGough said. “SALA students have three hours a day, 15 hours a week of that and in between all that they have school. (The book) ‘Outliers’ talks about those 10,000 hours, and what we experience from parents is, ‘wow, how did Parker get so good overnight?’ Well, he’s training for three hours a day, and it’s constant. And he’s also playing with folks around him (who are just as good).”
The basketball team at SALA South is coached by Adam Jones, son of former Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers. He won multiple high school state championships while growing up in Winter Park, Fla., as well as a post-graduate school national championship.
“We push them in many different ways. We understand there are different skill levels, but we want them all to have accountability and discipline. If you are accountable and disciplined, that creates a really solid foundation for a basketball player,” Jones said. “I invite parents into the gym. I want them to see what we are working on and how we’re doing it. I tell parents that whatever their son’s goal is, it’s my job, with my experience, to try to get them to the highest level they want to get to. I do that on and off the court. Parents are going to hear from their kids when the kids get home about how I speak to them, my approach to the game — so they’ll get the overall picture by being in the gym and hearing about it from their kids.”
Jones and the other coaches say their goal is to get a kid to whatever level that player aspires to reach, whether it be NCAA Divisions I, II or III, or even to the professional level. They are also brutally honest, however, when educating young athletes on what it will take to get to those levels.
“The first question we ask before the season is, ‘how many of you want to go pro?’ And every kid raises their hand. Every kid. Then you ask, ‘how many of you are willing to do what it takes to go pro?’ They all still have their hand up,” he said. “Then, once you have that first practice and they see, some kids shy away from it and some kids embrace the fact that they can’t just be one dimensional (and want to just shoot the ball). Some kids get it. You have to work, day in and day out, and you have to earn everything here. No one is automatically a starter.”
“We want to meet every kid where they are at and show them what’s possible. We ask them what their No. 1 goal is. If it’s Division I, we help them get to that goal. If their goal is to go pro, we want to help them get there. We recognize that not everyone is going to go pro, but if you’re shooting for that and don’t make it, and fall to Division I, that’s still pretty good. If you’re shooting for Division I and don’t make it, but fall to Division III, you’re still one of the very few who are playing college sports,” Solowey said. “One of the biggest challenges for us is somebody might come in here and say they want something, but they don’t necessarily know what it takes to get there. Sometimes that’s too tough, to come in here and train twice a day, every day, and that’s OK. Some people want the traditional school experience, but the ones who come here want the quality training and the individualized attention in the classroom. They stay because they understand the value.”
In terms of the scholastic side of things, kids are taking accredited classes so they are eligible to compete at the NCAA level once they graduate.
“We work off a curriculum based off the New Jersey state standards. It’s still a standards-based curriculum so they are still learning grade-level material — our goal is to prepare them, educationally, for what is next,” Sloane explained. “For some, that might be college, for some it might be the work force. Wherever they are going, we want them to be prepared with the same skills that their peers have coming out of a traditional school environment. If for some reason their sports aspirations don’t work out, they are still prepared to succeed at whatever they are going to do.
“The students are receiving a much more enriching quality of instruction in a shorter amount of time. I can work with a student for 15 minutes and they are going to get a deeper level of instruction than if I were working in a classroom of 30 students for an hour,” Sloane continued. “And the other thing is, we’re teaching the whole student. We’re not just teaching math, we’re not just teaching basketball — we’re teaching them how to be better leaders, better athletes, better learners. That’s what is so incredible about the program. We’re not focused on one thing, we’re developing these students for what they want to become, and what skills they will need to become that.”
Solowey said it’s because of the people involved that SALA continues to grow, and he believes the sky is the limit for this type of school/athletics experience. In a sense, SALA provides a glimpse into what the future will be like for high-level student-athletes.
“When you look at the backgrounds of the ownership group and all the people here, that’s where the ‘L’ in SALA comes from, that leadership,” Solowey said. “I’ve been lucky enough to coach in seven different countries, Adam has played at a high level, Jerry has been very successful — I think all these like-minded people coming together and giving all this to the kids, that’s the reason I started here and why I’ll stay here. It’s so good for these kids to have a full, well-rounded, holistic experience and come out of here a better student, a better athlete and a better leader.”
Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com
