Berkeley the mightiest of all

The Tampa school far outdistances the five-county field in points accumulated for sports achievements.

By SCOTT PURKS

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 6, 2000

TAMPA -- Berkeley Prep's athletic program is growing like its athletes -- quick, strong, fast and smart.

And that's bad news for its opponents when you consider this year's Times All-Sports Award results: Berkeley lapped the field of 74 high schools in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties with 870 points.

The closest competitor was Palm Harbor University with 605.

Berkeley's 870 points also are far and away the most earned by a school since the current scoring system began in 1997. In the past three years, Jesuit won with 730 and 752 and Clearwater Central Catholic won with 680.

"This has to be the most successful year we've had overall," said Bucs volleyball coach Randy Dagostino, who has been at Berkeley for 19 years and guided his teams to 11 state titles. "We had a winning attitude that carried from the beginning of the year to the end. It was exciting."

The Bucs started in the fall with their third consecutive state volleyball title, a fourth-place finish at state in boys golf, fourth-place finishes at state in boys and girls swimming, a seventh-place state finish in boys cross country and a 13th-place showing in girls cross country.

Girls basketball and girls soccer followed in the winter with appearances in the regional semifinals. In the spring, the Bucs baseball team was a state semifinalist while the softball team was another regional semifinalist.

Looking at that list, one might wonder what's going on at Berkeley?

Some things are obvious. Within the past few years, the Town N' Country campus has added a state-of-the-art swimming pool, a rubberized track, a practice gym for volleyball and basketball and a 3,000-square-foot weightlifting room that many coaches have said is the school's most valuable facility.

"The volleyball team lives in that weight room, and the work the girls have done in there has definitely paid off," Dagostino said. "I think sometimes we played teams that might have had better athletes than us, but we beat them because we executed better and we were stronger."

Berkeley Prep athletic director Bobby Reinhart said the weight room is "constantly" in use during the school day's weightlifting classes and through the evening when teams take over.

"We often have to set a schedule for teams to lift," Reinhart said. "Sometimes, we have to turn kids away for a little while because the room gets too full."

The scary thing for opponents is that Berkeley should only get stronger. After all, that's how many employees remember it being long before the fancy facilities were built.

Dave Zimmerman, for instance, has taught and coached at Berkeley for 27 years, back when the school wasn't much more than a small building on Davis Islands and he had to take his soccer team to the University of Tampa to practice. Almost every year, the Bucs had success.

"We had very little space, but we always seemed to make the most out of our athletes," said Zimmerman, who coached cross country and soccer this past season. "That has been a tradition. And now that we have these state-of-the-art facilities and the great coaches in place, I'd have to say the sky is the limit."

Reinhart, who became Berkeley's athletic director a year ago, said he understood what Zimmerman meant the second he stepped on campus.

"There is a wonderful commitment to the students and the athletes at this school," Reinhart said. "I know it will be tough to top this year, but I can guarantee that we're going to try."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.

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