The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) recently announced that, for the first time, all of the lanes at the Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) at S.R. 56 and Exit 275 of I-75 are now open.
According to FDOT, a fourth westbound land on S.R. 56 was opened on Oct. 31, along with a third left turn lane from the northbound I-275/I-75 exit ramp onto westbound S.R. 56.
Work is still continuing on the interchange as crews put the final touches on the $33.6-million project, so FDOT continues to urge caution for travelers making their way through the new intersection. Other than some clean-up items the DDI is considered complete.
The project began construction in Jan. 2019, far ahead of its original schedule, and despite the first construction company being dismissed from the project (and later going out of business), the new company, Superior Construction Company Southeast, LLC, has managed to exceed expectations for finishing the job before year’s end.— JCC
The new rescue truck at Fire Station No. 21 will help those in major motor vehicle accidents who need more assistance than a typical rescue vehicle can provide. (Photo: Tampa Fire Rescue)
While City of Tampa Fire Rescue (TFR) Chief Barbara Tripp wrestles with ways to improve fire rescue response times in New Tampa, our area has received its first-ever “mini-heavy” rescue (MHR) truck.
The MHR truck, which is similar to the heavy rescue fire rescue trucks but is smaller and designed for technical rescues, will run out of TFR Fire Station No. 21, the Cross Creek Blvd. station closest to Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd.
The new truck, part of the department’s special operations division, will work in concert with the larger fire rescue trucks and will be manned by Tampa Fire Rescue (TFR) firefighters who are trained in urban search and rescue.
“That apparatus basically has more technical tools to assist with major incidents, such as a major vehicle accident that people need to be extricated from,” says TFR spokesperson Vivian Shedd. “Think of it as a giant tool box, with lots of things you don’t normally use. But, when you need it, you are glad you have it because it makes the rescue go that much faster.”
The truck is equipped with the Jaws of Life, cutters and spreaders “and other tools for rope rescues and things of that nature” that aren’t on every fire rescue truck, Shedd adds.
Because the truck is for specialty rescues that don’t happen as often, it doesn’t specifically address the recent reports about fire rescue times in New Tampa. However, it is an important addition for Station No. 21, considering that the area is heavily reliant on major traffic areas like I-75 and BBD that are prone to major accidents.
An accident requiring the life-saving services of an MHR truck would have to typically wait 15-20 minutes, or more (depending upon the time of day), for one to arrive from downtown Tampa.
“This is why we saw the need and brought it over to New Tampa,” Shedd says. “People in those kind of accidents don’t have time to wait.”
Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera, who represents North and New Tampa in District 7, has been an advocate for more help at New Tampa’s four fire stations, and says the MHR truck is a great addition.
“This vehicle came after a lot of lobbying from me and our friends in Tampa Firefighters Local 754,” Viera says. “I appreciate them and so does New Tampa. Fire Rescue response times are a huge issue for me for New Tampa. This investment addresses this. We got this vehicle funded this past year and I got another $1,000,000 in the budget for response times this year.”
Viera says he hopes to see even more assistance in the future to help reduce rescue times in New Tampa, which rank among the worst in Tampa. Shedd says that the problem is high on Chief Tripp’s to-do list.
“One thing our fire chief has stressed that is very important to her are response times,” Shedd says. “She is deeply committed to making sure that we are able to respond to any emergency as quickly as possible…there is still more to be done, and we are looking into additional resources (to improve those times.)”
Today marks the 20th anniversary of Wharton High’s only appearance in a State Championship football game, when Southern Cal Hall of Famer and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Richard “Batman” Wood led the Wildcats to within a few points of immortality.
Head coach Richard “Batman” Wood led the Wildcats through an improbable season, ending with a loss in the Class 5A state championship.
Sometimes, when he closes his eyes, Wilbur Joseph says he can still feel the cool air drying the sweat on his forehead, his teammates lined up next to him on the Wharton Stadium goal line, their bodies facing north.
“North,” head coach Richard Wood would say. “That’s where Tallahassee is. That’s where the State Championship game is played. That’s where we’re headed.”
Twenty years later, Joseph still gets chills. “The memory is still fresh,” he says, almost breathless. “Still vivid. Oh…man.”
In 2002, in just its fifth year of existence, the Wharton High football team did what no other Wildcats football team has done since, shocking Tampa Bay with an improbable run, all the way north, to Tallahassee.
In the Class 5A championship game that year at Doak Campbell Stadium, however, the plucky, scrap-iron Wildcats lost to Pompano Beach Ely 22-10, a heart-crushing loss to end a heartwarming season that no one on that team will ever forget.
“I told them, ‘You know, there’s 67 counties in the state of Florida, and here we are, one of the only teams who have made a championship game,” says Wood, a former Tampa Bay Buccaneers star linebacker (1976-84) known as “Batman.” “And we’ve only been around a few years. Schools that have been here, in this state, for maybe 50, 60 years, haven’t been in this game. And, here we are. So, we can be proud. We can be proud that we (can say), ‘Hey, we did it!’”
Wood, now 69 and a defensive coach at Tampa Catholic High for the past decade, says those words probably didn’t mean as much to a team of heartbroken boys fighting back tears as they do today.
“I know it was tough,” Wood says, “because I cried my heart out, too.”
The 2002 Wildcats were, quite simply, special. They didn’t boast a bevy of Division I talent, they weren’t loaded with highly-rated transfers, and not a single player on the roster had even made the honorable mention All-County team the previous season.
But, they were flush with grit and determination, finishing with a 13-2 record.
“That was our first winning season in school history,” says wide receiver Michael Coonce, now an engineer living in Tampa. “Going into the season, we didn’t have any expectations around us. So, we rallied around each other, we took pride in shutting people up. We still talk about it today.”
Up to that point, Wharton’s biggest victories were moral ones for not getting blown out of games. The players were even made fun of in school.
Quarterback Ross Corcoran shows off his scrapbook from the 2002 season.
Quarterback Ross Corcoran, one of four first-team All-County players from that team, says he remembers a teacher cutting a picture out of the sports section showing a disheveled Corcoran after being sacked for the fifth time in a game, and pasting it all over his desk.
But, in 2002, everything changed.
“Once we beat Armwood and Hillsborough that year, everyone jumped on the train,” says Corcoran, adding that people would walk up to him at the Publix on Cross Creek Blvd. to congratulate him after a win. “It was like ‘Friday Night Lights.’”
Corcoran, who no lives in Oldsmar and works in the mortgage industry, returned to Wharton to try his hand at coaching for a few years, but it wasn’t the same.
“I find myself thinking back to that year a lot,” he says. “I don’t want to be all Al Bundy about it, but you know.”
Bundy, the iconic sitcom father from the hit Fox-TV show “Married With Children,” could never stop bragging about scoring four touchdowns in the city championship game for the Polk High Panthers. But, Corcoran would rather talk about his teammates.
Larry Edwards
Tackles Joseph (1st team All-County) and Will Russell and center Jason Novisk (Honorable Mention) bulldozed defenses, while running backs Larry Edwards and Joe Hall (1st team) ran over them and Coonce (HM) ran around them as a top wideout.
The defensive line, anchored by nose tackle Kendric Morris, cleared the way for Edwards to wreak havoc from his linebacker position, where he had 14 sacks, was named Hillsborough County’s Defensive MVP by The Tampa Tribune, and earned a scholarship to the University of North Carolina, where he was named All-ACC.
Senior defensive backs Chris Wilson and Chris Ellick (both 2nd team) were ballhawks in the secondary. Defensively, the Wildcats were “insane,” Corcoran says.
“That was a true family,” says then-assistant coach David Mitchell, who later served as the Wharton head coach for more than a decade before retiring in 2020. “Coaches all say that, but this really was. There was really just a little something different about them.”
Wood, who was a defensive assistant while working as the Wharton school resource officer in 1997, took over the program after Dan Acosta was fired two games into the 1998 season. If there ever was a missing piece, it was Wood.
“When principal Mitch Muley offered me the job, I said, ‘Are you serious?,’” Wood recalls. “If I do it, it’s gonna be tough. I’m a Vince Lombardi guy. I was coached by John McKay (at USC). I’m old school.”
It turns out that Muley was serious, and Wood took the job and said, “Give me a few years.” The ‘Cats won two games in each of his first two seasons, then four games in 2001 before Wood was able to set his sights north.
Wood had 31 seniors in 2002, and he said it was just one of those magical combinations that come together, sometimes just once in a lifetime.
“You know, here you are, you have kids from the inner city, and then you have kids that live in the suburbs, and they treated each other like they were brothers,” Wood says. “You could see it all the time. They loved each other. And, all I wanted for them was to help them win.”
And, win they did, opening the season with a 37-6 victory over Robinson. Wharton lost just once, 10-7 to a Chamberlain team that played for the Class 5A State Championship the year before, but won their final six regular season games in dominant fashion.
“They don’t have any weaknesses,” coach Earl Garcia said at the time, prior to his Hillsborough team losing to the Wildcats 21-0 the night Wharton clinched its playoff spot.
After that game, Wood flew to Los Angeles to be inducted into the USC Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the L.A. Coliseum. For some of his players, it was the first time they found out their coach was the only three-time All-American in the storied history of the Trojans. “Coach was a real-life superhero,” Corcoran says. “He just didn’t walk around telling everyone.”
In the Class 5A playoff opener, Wharton had to travel to Melbourne because the ‘Cats were the district runner-up behind Chamberlain. Its season nearly ended 150 miles away, but Corcoran hit wide receiver Jovan Mitchell for a 27-yard touchdown with 8 minutes remaining. A pair of defensive stands secured the 14-13 win.
The next week, Wharton beat Durant 20-14, as Hall and Edwards both went over 100 yards rushing and Edwards scored with 5 minutes left.
After beating Lakeland 27-7 before 4,300 fans at Wharton Stadium, the Wildcats hosted the State Semifinal against Daytona Beach Mainland.
The 30-3 win still remains as the greatest game in Wharton football history.
Corcoran threw for 212 yards — 126 of those and a touchdown to Coonce —Edwards had four sacks and Hall returned a fumble 75 yards for a touchdown.
Wood fought back tears afterwards. He had played on television and in a Rose Bowl and NFL playoff games, but this game hit him like no other.
“This was the greatest game of our lives — the kids’ lives and my life,” he told reporters. “Truly, by far, the greatest.”
The Class 5A State Championship game was not as great. Wharton came out flat against Ely — losing two fumbles, throwing an interception and dropping a touchdown pass on its first five possessions — and fell behind 15-3 at halftime.
“I definitely don’t want to take anything away from them, they had two All American offensive linemen and an All-American running back, but playing in a stadium that big and kind of being out of routine and all the extra stuff around the game took us out of sync,” Coonce says. “It took us a quarter-plus to start playing right.”
Hall capped an 86-yard drive with a TD run on Wharton’s first possession of the second half, to make it 15-10. The three bus loads full of Wharton fans grew louder.
But, despite a strong defensive effort, Ely’s star running back, Tyrone Moss, broke free for a 55-yard TD with four minutes remaining for the winning score and with 210 yards rushing.
Corcoran, Joseph, Coonce and probably every Wildcat on that roster insists to this day that Wharton should have won that game. Take away a few miscues and some bad luck, and Wharton would — and should — have been crowned State champions.
Mitchell remembers coming home from Tallahassee the next day, grabbing the mail and flinging it across the room once he got inside. To this day, he has not watched a replay of the game.
Time, however, heals many wounds.
“That was the highlight of my life,” Joseph says. “I think about it all the time. I still see some of the guys I played with, and we always end up talking about it — the games, the bus rides. That was an amazing feeling. You felt like it was never going to end. It was like living in a fairy tale. In the moment, you don’t realize how significant it is. But, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Midfielder Jeremy Caruso, who had 27 assists for Wiregrass Ranch High last year, as well as five goals, works on his shot at a recent practice. (Photo: Charmaine George)
In just about every year of its existence, the Wiregrass Ranch High boys soccer program has been able to reload.
This year, for the first time in a long time, it is rebuilding.
“We haven’t had to do this since, well, our first year,” says head coach Dave Wilson.
However, as the 2022-23 soccer season kicks off, Wilson finds himself dealing with a significant amount of newcomers as he tries to keep the Bulls atop the local boys soccer scene.
Wiregrass Ranch lost 13 of last year’s 19 players to graduation, and 10 of the 17 players on his roster this year are either freshmen or sophomores.
And yet, that hasn’t stopped the Bulls from getting off to a 7-2 start.
“It’s a rebuilding year that we hope to turn into a reloading year,” Wilson says. “It’s basically a whole new team. But, we have the tradition here, that bar has been raised and it makes the guys know what is expected.”
What is expected is a ninth straight Sunshine Athletic Conference East title, a Class 6A, District 9 title and maybe a playoff win or two.
The Bulls have the talent, with seniors Cole Turner (MF/D), Jeremy Caruso (MF) and Briggs Bent (D/F) leading the way.
Wiregrass Ranch also has been bolstered by the addition of senior forward Alex Rodriguez, playing his first season for the Bulls after playing in the U.S. Academy program the past three years. He scored four goals in the first three games, and leads the team with eight goals in seven matches. Sophomore forward Alexei Leon, who scored nine times last year as a freshman, is second on the team with five goals.
Caruso led the Bulls with 27 assists and already has nine early on this season.
Wilson also expects big things from sophomore twins Malachi and Mykall Lewis, whose brothers Malcom and Maurice are former Bulls standouts.
“I think we always expect to be in the hunt for the district title,” Wilson says. “This group is just going to keep on getting better and better.”
‘Cats Look For Repeat
Wesley Chapel, 17-6-1 and District 5A-6 champs last year, must replace its leading scorer, but senior forward Josh Lindo (12 goals, 5 assists last season) and senior midfielder Lucas Herrera (11 goals, 15 assists) are up for the challenge. Lindo (five goals so far) and sophomore striker Cameron Brunner (three goals) are leading the way for WCH so far, as the Wildcats have started out 3-1-1.
Coyotes Contending Again
The Cypress Creek High Coyotes are coming off an 11-6-2 season where they finished as the District 5A-6 runners-up behind Wesley Chapel.
At 4-2 so far with losses to undefeated Sunlake and Wesley Chapel, the Coyotes return a wealth of talent and should contend for the district title again.
The two players who combined to scored 30 of the team’s 53 goals return — junior striker Jackson Stump and sophomore striker Chase Lasasso.
Stump had 22 goals and four assists last year, and has five goals in the season-opening win against Gulf and leads the team with eight this season. Lasasso had eight goals last year and has four this season.
Midfielders Nicolas Cifuentes (6), Max Laframboise (8) and Jose Pacheco (3) lead the Coyotes in assists so far and keeper Dylan Lolley, who had 142 saves and 2.12 goals-against average in 2021-22, is back in net. Lolley has 27 saves and a 0.90 GAA this season.
RADDSports chief operating officer Anthony Homer appeared at the Nov. 15 Pasco County Commission meeting to ask the commissioners to vote to overturn their previous decision to hold RADD in default. The commissioners refused without discussion. (Screenshot from Pasco Television)
Pasco County is looking to take over the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, but the company that currently runs it, RADDSports, is claiming that Pasco — primarily Florida Sports Coast director Adam Thomas — has used bogus claims to force RADD out or into a reduced role.
The two sides are at odds over how the facility, which opened in July of 2020 but officially opened in January 2021, is being run and the results of those early efforts.
The county’s Board of Commissioners (BOC) approved a Notice of Default, originally written by Thomas, as part of its Consent Agenda at the BOC’s Oct. 25th meeting, without any discussion. Included was the okay to pay Tampa law firm Carlton Fields up to $200,000 to handle the default case, as well as more than $2.8 million to cover the potential cost of the takeover plan.
Although RADDSports’ lawyers were under the impression that the two sides would be able to meet before the default notice was sent, it was delivered on Nov. 4 by attorney Dane Blunt of Carlton Fields.
“The notice claims that RADDSports is in default of a handful of sections of the contract the two sides originally signed,” said Blunt’s letter.
However, the letter stated that it is the county’s option to allow RADDSports to continue operating the sports campus and that, “RADDSports is in full control of the future” provided it undergo a ‘radical shift in (its) current operations, promotion, and marketing’ to attain compliance with the contract.”
Anthony Homer, the chief operating officer for RADDSports, told county commissioners at the Oct. 25 meeting that he and his company were eager to come to the table and work out any differences, and appeared to be blindsided by the delivery of the Nov. 4 Notice of Default letter.
Homer also attended the Nov. 15 BOC meeting and delivered RADDSports’ refutation of the Notice of Default in person. Commissioners voted unanimously to allow it into record, but again, with no discussion
He told the commissioners they had been misled and that some data had been misrepresented at the Oct. 25 meeting, and that they approved a Notice of Default “for which the county had no support.”
Homer said he was told by the county’s attorneys after the Oct. 25 meeting that the notice of default would not be issued and, instead, discussions would be held to settle the matter.
“Since then, the county has refused to engage in any substantive discussion,” Homer said. “It has not provided any data upon which it based its claims to put RADDSports in default and, despite saying otherwise, on Nov. 4, the county’s attorneys issued (RADD) a Notice of Default.”
The Nov. 4 notice, says Homer, was different than the one the commissioners voted on at the Oct. 25 meeting, as specific data was removed after RADD supplied the correct data. And, in RADD’s letter of refutation given to the BOC, more data was provided to prove the county had been using incorrect information to make its case.
In fact, Homer said, when it comes to the county’s claims that RADDSports has focused on local residents and events and hasn’t appealed to tourists, the county paid $30,000 to Zartico, a data intelligence company that focuses on the visitor economy, to do a custom analysis of the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus visitor-to-resident ratio.
“(Zartico’s report) actually confirmed the data we had previously provided,” Homer said. “So, it’s now obvious that the county has no support for its claim that RADDSports is in default and is asserting its claims in bad faith.”
The Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus has hosted dozens of sports events involving teams from all over the country.
Homer said the claims made by the county were unfairly damaging the reputation of RADDSports and were making it harder to book events. He asked that the BOC vote to immediately revoke the Notice of Default.
He didn’t get the vote he requested, but Homer and RADDSports will still be getting a chance to make their case.
In the Nov. 4 default letter, Blunt wrote that, “At this time, the County believes it is in the best interest of both parties’ to mediate their disputes pursuant to the Agreement.”
A mediation with retired Judge Gregory Holder has been scheduled for Monday, Nov. 28, and Blunt said the county plans to participate.
“We ask that RADDSports come to mediation prepared to share with the county its detailed, written plan for future compliance with the Agreement,” Blunt said.
RADD will make its defense that most of the claims in the Notice of Default are false, as it already has in multiple letters to the county and to Carlton Fields.
If the contract between the county and RADDSports, which has 18 years remaining on it, is terminated by Pasco, it likely will result in an expensive legal battle.
RADD president & CEO Richard Blalock said he hopes it doesn’t come to that.
“RADDSports remains willing to work with the County and all stakeholders,” Blalock wrote. “The cloud of a bogus Notice of Default will not help those discussions, but will lead to litigation that will be expensive to both parties and hinder the mutually beneficial resolution of the County’s perceived issues.”
And, in his Nov. 14 letter to the commissioners, Homer said, “That the county would allocate $2.8M to take over operations of a facility RADDSports operates at no cost (to the county) is simply mind boggling. We can only imagine there are areas in the County which would be delighted to see that invested in additional parks and recreation offerings.”
Here are the portions of the contract between RADDSports & Pasco County that the county claims RADDSports has defaulted on & RADD’s responses to each claim:
Claim #1 — RADD has not continuously operated the Sports Park Property to ensure that 90% of the 80% annual average of participants and non-participants….are non-County residents. RADD’s Response — RADD President and CEO Richard Blalock said in his company’s refutation letter that the county has no supporting data for this claim, and that RADDSports has provided data from a “credible, billion dollar, national 3rd party data provider” to Thomas that shows RADDSports has exceeded those targets and is not in default.
Claim #2 — RADDSports’ events have resulted in hotel stays that are “well short” of what is needed. RADD’s Response — RADDSports says it is not to blame for Covid restrictions (as well as the number of people not ready to return to traveling) in 2020 and 2021, but regardless, had 74,400 non-county visits in 2021 (3.7 times more than required) and 59,000 non-county visits through three quarters of 2022 (2.8 times more than required). Blalock calls this claim “particularly egregious” considering the data Pasco received from Zartico (which it also says Florida Sports Coast never told them about) shows the number of out-of-county visitors has increased every year and 83 percent of those visitors required overnight stays.
Claim #3 — RADDSports has failed to promote and market the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus as it relates to promoting tourism, based on a review of RADDSports’ Facebook and Instagram posts and newsletters. RADD’s Response — RADDSports claims that the county is misreading the contract, which states that it is Pasco County’s responsibility to market the facility, and other than obligating RADDSports to “provide marketing information and material to the Pasco County Office of Tourism,” does not place any obligations on RADDSports. In fact, RADDSports argues that it is Florida Sports Coast that was in default of that part of the contract. As of September 12 of this year, the Florida Sports Coast website still referred to the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus as a “proposed 8 court indoor sports facility.” Even after asking Thomas to update it, it took more than a month for the changes to be made.
Claim #4 — RADDSports is not cooperating with the Residence Inn by Marriott hotel when it comes to marketing opportunities, claiming that the hotel operator also has expressed concern about the way RADDSports is operating and has asked the County to step in. RADD’s Response — In their response to the county, RADDSports insists the operator of the Residence Inn has not made such claims, and that the county’s lawyers “affirmatively asked the (Residence Inn) operator to make such claims, and even went so far as to draft a letter for him they asked him to sign making (those) claims….The operator refused to sign the letter drafted by the County’s Lawyers.”
Claim #5 — That RADDSports also has heard from “multiple sources” that they were rudely rebuffed when trying to book events, and failed to timely respond to inquiries while prioritizing local events. RADD’s Response — According to data from RADDSports, in 2021, the facility hosted 52 events, when it was projected to host only 38, and brought in 30 organizations, 26,000 athletes and 60,000 spectators. So far this year, the campus has hosted 44 events and will host 62 by year’s end, bringing in 15,000 athletes, 38,000 spectators and $5.5 million in economic impact, and already has 48 events booked for 2023, and 86% are returning events. “We believe this speaks to the professionalism and support (we give to) all event organizers that we are privileged to host at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County,” Blalock wrote.
Claim #6 — That RADDSports is in default of Section 9.03 because it has failed to provide the required annual financial audit for the year ending December 31, 2021. RADD’s Response — RADD claims it cannot control the timing of the audit, and due to “significant personal issues” it had been delayed. Regardless, the contract doesn’t state a deadline for delivery and, last week, RADD said the audit was completed and delivered to Thomas.
