Prep Volleyball | Gulf Coast HEAT defies stereotypes for home-schooled athletes
SARASOTA -- Chairs screech across the linoleum floor at Faith Lutheran Church until three rows of them line the walls nearest the entrance. Four portable basketball hoops are pushed to the side and a volleyball net is planted in the middle of the room.
By 6 p.m. on Tuesday, this tiny all-purpose room with walls covered in children's art will be home to a high school volleyball match between two of the best teams on the Florida Suncoast.
Nearly every afternoon during the fall, Faith Lutheran's Fellowship Hall goes through this routine and the unassuming church building transforms into a gymnasium for the Gulf Coast HEAT, the only high school team in Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties without an actual school building to call its own.
"I played a game with a different team when I was in middle school and we played at this gym and I was like, 'This is such a weird gym!'" said Bethany Ewing, now a senior setter for the HEAT. "And now I'm here and it's like home, and it's like a regular gym to me now."
On this Tuesday in Sarasota, the one-of-a-kind home court plays host to a pair of the most unique teams in Florida. The seats weren't packed with students and the only chants came from the two benches. As parents mingled and watched their children, the Tampa Bay HEAT, which entered the game with a 20-4 record and firm grasp of first place in Class 2A-8, toppled the Gulf Coast HEAT, 3-1.
HEAT, which is an acroynym for Home Educated Athletic Team, is an organization which offers high school sports to homeschooled students and this year, the Gulf Coast HEAT are one of the best teams in the area. Gulf Coast is 7-0 against Manatee County schools with wins against Palmetto, Southeast, Bayshore and Bradenton Christian. With one game remaining, the HEAT is 16-7 and a win away from matching last season's total with only one senior on the roster.
Previously called the Manatee HEAT -- the name changed this season -- the team prior to 2013 had a reputation as a doormat in the area.
"From what referees and other people told me," head coach Kevin Krause said, "there were seasons when they wouldn't win a game. Sometimes they wouldn't score a point. We just kind of have to start from scratch."
In its first season with Krause, the HEAT won 18 games. The program drew from the remnants of Sarasota West Florida Christian, which shut down after a 19-1 final season in 2012. West Florida Christian allowed homeschooled players on the team, including Krause's daughters, and when the school shut down most students became homeschooled themselves.
The HEAT came from the remains and immediately pieced together an 18-win year.
"When people heard the name HEAT they did not think of a winning team," said Courtney Krause, the coach's daughter and a junior. "They thought, 'Oh, the HEAT? We're gonna crush them.' We kind of changed that stereotype a little bit."
Gulf Coast is a program built upon defying stereotypes, the ones about the name's reputation and the expectation of what homeschooled students are.
"Oh, you're homeschooled," Krause said she frequently hears. "You don't have any social life."
"That's not true," she said.
Twice a week she and her sister, Macenzie Krause, take three classes at State College of Florida. On other days, she's taking classes at home before coaching a middle school team in the afternoon and heading off to HEAT practice at Faith Lutheran.
The homeschool schedule works for her partially because it gives her flexibility. If the HEAT needs to move practice earlier, it can. If she has a club tournament during the weekend, she can study from the road on Friday.
The limited social circle, however, is a reality. Krause doesn't attend a big public school with hundreds of students per grade, so the HEAT also becomes a social scene for players, coaches and parents. Despite being older than most teammates, Ewing still goes to the mall with them and calls them her closest friends. During practices, parents linger to chat with people who become some of their closest friends, too.
"It makes you closer with these friends because you don't have as many, I guess," Courtney Krause said.
The varsity team currently features nine players -- there is a junior varsity team, as well -- and Kevin Krause said it can be a struggle to find players to fill out a roster. The HEAT can't advertise because of FHSAA recruiting rules, so word spreads almost exclusively by mouth. This year, Gulf Coast didn't have enough players to fill a middle school team like it did in 2014.
Kevin Krause thinks it's just part of the cycle, though. Eventually, the HEAT will need to find a way to increase numbers. Right now, their success is coming in part because of the lack of turnover.
"All these girls are my best friends and I can count on them," Ewing said. "We're all really close. I think it's what makes us such a good team."
This story was originally published October 15, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Prep Volleyball | Gulf Coast HEAT defies stereotypes for home-schooled athletes ."