MANATEE - Inside a massive indoor tennis court complex, a line of pre-schoolers do their best to hit tennis balls lobbed at them by a coach.
Two teachers sit intently in chairs behind the line of youngsters and watch, smiling approvingly and making the occasional comment to each other.
It could be a scene from a fancy private school, but it’s not.
Instead, it’s a morning lesson at IMG Academies.
The parents of these children have paid as much as $60,000 to have them train for a year with arguably some of the world’s best coaches at the massive campus off 34th Street West.
One day, their parents believe, they could be the next Maria Sharapova or Pete Sampras.
Driving by IMG’s understated walls near the campuses of Manatee Technical Institute and Manatee Community College, one gets little sense of what exists within. But there is a hive of activity, with students of various ages migrating to and from classes and to various sports training and mental conditioning exercises.
“It’s kind of like a small, college environment,” says Christopher King, business coordinator at IMG. “We’re 24/365. We don’t shut down.”
With the campus, a golf course, 58 tennis courts and the El Conquistador country club, IMG’s footprint is just more than 500 acres.
Inside a 10,000-square-foot weight room, Tamba Hali, a defensive end for the Kansas City Chiefs, performs a conditioning exercise involving balancing on one foot atop a large rubber ball. Wide receiver Matt Jones of the Jacksonville Jaguars and linebacker Ryan Fowler of the Tennessee Titans are also on campus this day getting training, King says.
Although the game of IMG’s founder, Nick Bollettieri, was tennis, there are far more sports represented here.
Soccer, golf, basketball and baseball also have found a home on the property that Bollettieri started as a tennis boarding school in 1978, and which was purchased by IMG in 1987.
Bollettieri, now in his late 70s, still coaches tennis at the academy, typically charging $800 an hour or more to help fine tune up-and-coming champions, King says.
Tuition for one year at IMG ranges from $40,000 to $60,000, depending on the level of supervision and type of housing required for the student, King says.
IMG has its own on-site K-12 school, The Pendleton School, and also has its own University of Miami satellite campus. The academy also partners with St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Bradenton to provide education for its athletes in training.
For an additional $20,000 a year, student athletes can stay in the Academy Park Villas at the rear of the IMG campus.
These posh condos come furnished and contain all the amenities, including large flat-screen TVs in every room, swanky fixtures and balconies.
King says NFL players often use the Academy Park Villas as a home base for offseason training at IMG.
“In the offseason, if they’re coming down to train, a lot of times they’ll bring their families,” King says. “The whole season they’re away from their families, but during the offseason, when it’s still vital to train, they have a place to bring their families and the son or daughter can do a sport, and the wife can do adult tennis or adult golf.”
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