The Great American Teach-In (GATI) isn’t just a day Pride Elementary school principal Cindy Land uses to squeeze in a few speakers for students to listen to and gawk at, a day for kids to see the uniforms their parents wear to work or to pet a few animals.
For Land, it’s always been about something bigger.
“I think it excites the kids about their future careers,” Land said, “and it’s just a great way to get your community involved.”
That may explain why Pride rolls out the red carpet with a hot breakfast and a catered lunch for its GATI guests, which this year numbered more than 100.
From firemen to artists, television anchors to local politicians — with a good number of furry critters thrown in between — the Great American Teach-In appears to have been another success not only at Pride, but all around New Tampa.
At Chiles Elementary in Tampa Palms, the guests who came speak to students about their careers included photographers, cooks, physical therapists, hair stylists, authors, experts on Chinese culture and USF cross country head coach Dena Reif.
At Liberty Middle School, also in Tampa Palms, the USF Sun Dolls appeared, along with a comic book artist, commercial pilot and others.
At Pride, there seemed to be almost every job imaginable represented, including Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan, who has participated at Pride for 10 straight years.
“The 5th grade kids do really well with that, because government is what they are learning right now,’’ Land said.
There were also nurses, doctors, hot air balloons and the always popular animal rescues and certified therapy dogs.
Julie Van Acker, who works for Organicgirl, made healthy green smoothies for the kids in her class, while Kristen Gefre from Busch Gardens showed her kids a screech owl named Emmett and a baby american alligator named River.
The three-page handout with all of the guests and their teaching times was like a treasure map for the Pride students, who have been treated to a number of famous guests in recent years, including former Tampa Bay Bucs coach Tony Dungy.
At Pride, it’s getting bigger and bigger every year.
“It’s one of our largest events that we hold here at Pride,’’ Land said. “We contact everyone the prior spring, and any contacts we make throughout the year, we are consistently sending emails to them. We kind of eyeball the date we expect it to be and go from there. We love to have the community involved.”
The Wharton girls basketball team celebrates its first victory of the season.
1. The Wharton girls basketball team beat Freedom 70-49. I’m just going to let that one sit here for awhile. While you’re picking up your jaw, we’ll continue on, but we’ll come back to it, I promise.
Diamond was a Wildcats best friend Tuesday night.
2. Star of the night: Wharton 6-foot senior Diamond Wells, who came in with 25 points scored the entire season, lit up the Patriots for 27 and a bunch of rebounds and made 15-of-19 free throws. Oh, and she was a perfect 10-for-10 in the fourth quarter from the line. Wells’ previous high this season was 14 in the Wildcats’ last game, a loss to Venice, and her career-high was 15 in games against Plant her sophomore season and Tampa Bay Tech her freshman season. Asked if she knew her team was the only one from Wharton that was supposed to lose Tuesday night, she said “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.” Oh, and by the way, “School is going to be great” today, she added.
3. If a tree falls in the woods behind a field where one school beats its arch-rivals in four athletics events in one night, does that tree make a sound, and does it still count as a rivalry? It was dubbed Rivalry Night at Wharton, but the Wildcats swept Freedom in all four games — boys and girls soccer and boys and girls basketball — Tuesday evening. Maybe the pajamas the Wharton student section wore suggested to Freedom it was nighty-night time. Or maybe, Wharton just has the better teams for the moment. On this night, it certainly looked like that was the case.
4. For a Rivalry Night, the crowds were pretty, well, sparse. Oh, sure, they came out for the boys basketball game, but when that game ended with the Wildcats ekeing out a 47-44 victory, the gym emptied out. The girls game deserved better, as it turned out, but let’s be honest, everyone thought that game would be a Freedom rout. I counted barely 30 at the soccer games. Lopsided affairs can kill a rivalry, and Wharton has definitely had the upper hand in most of the sports in recent years, but you would still expect a little more sizzle in the bleachers.
Lauren Wall had a big game for Wharton.
5. So back to this Wharton girls basketball thing. The Wildcats just whipped Freedom from start to finish. They were much bigger than the Patriots, killed them inside and never let up, outscoring Freedom 23-9 in the fourth quarter to put an exclamation mark on the win, which I think you could argue at least was the biggest of coach Chad Reed’s career since beating Plant to win the district title in 2009.
It was pretty stunning, considering the Wildcats were 0-6 this season and had lost half of those games by at least 25 points and hadn’t beaten Freedom since 2009 and had lost the last five by 30 points or more and, well, we could go on and on. Because we’re not done. We’ll be back to the girls hoopsters in a bit.
6. Wharton boys basketball coach Tommy Tonelli said in the preseason he thought Evan Trice would be one of the best point guards in Tampa Bay. He was pretty darned good Tuesday night. The senior scored a game-high 17 points, including 11 in the first half as the Wildcats built a lead they would carry into the final period.
7. Wharton’s Josiah Crawford, who scored six points, said there was some talk at practice this week about making sure the Wildcats remained the top hoops program in New Tampa. Wharton has won 12 of the last 14 meetings between the teams going back to 2005, and both Freedom victories were by a combined three points (39-38 in 2014 and 74-72 in 2008). “We talked about how we’re big brother and they are little brother,” he said. “But really it’s about who is the big dog. Tonight we were the bigger dog.”
Alisha Deshenes
8. Tuesday’s 4-0 victory over Freedom was the Wharton girls soccer team’s fourth straight game without a loss and third straight win. The Wildcats had a number of breakaways against Freedom, which played with its defenders up in a futile effort to catch Wharton offsides, and could have scored more.
However, two goals from sophomore Alisha Deschenes (her fourth and fifth of the season) and goals from Alabama-signee Taylor Hubbard (her team-leading sixth) and sophomore Delaney Rowan, her scored her first of the season, were plenty.
9. The boys soccer team sandwiched a Freedom goal with scores from juniors Clifford Adjei (to make it 1-0) and Donovan Quigley, with Quigley’s providing the winning margin in a 2-1 victory. Adjei leads the Wildcats with six goals, and Quigley is second with three, and don’t look now but Wharton has won two straight after a three-match losing streak.
10. Back to the night’s heroes. Senior Lauren Wall scored 12 of her 16 points in the first half for the girls basketballers, and junior Sabrena Eye scored 10 of her 12 in the first half, but it was the last basket of the game that drew the biggest ovation. With her teammates on the edge of their seats living and dying with each of her shots, freshman Brianna Boney finally made the first basket of her high school career when she grabbed a rebound off her own miss in the paint and put it in off the glass for two. Bravo, Brianna.
Neighborhood News assistant editor John C. Cotey can be reached at john@ntneighborhoodnews.com
The Great American Teach-In (GATI) isn’t just a day Pride Elementary school principal Cindy Land uses to squeeze in a few speakers for students to listen to and gawk at, a day for kids to see the uniforms their parents wear to work or to pet a few animals.
From firemen to artists, television anchors to local politicians — with a good number of furry critters thrown in between — the Great American Teach-In appears to have been another success not only at Pride, but all around New Tampa.
At Pride, there seemed to be almost every job imaginable represented, including Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan, who has participated at Pride for 10 straight years.
The three-page handout with all of the guests and their teaching times was like a treasure map for the Pride students, who have been treated to a number of famous guests in recent years, including former Tampa Bay Bucs coach Tony Dungy.
