Carrollton gets home team advantage

By Marlene Quaroni - Florida Catholic

Photography: MARLENE QUARONI | FC

MIAMI | The girls on Carrollton School’s basketball and volleyball teams never played a home game against other schools — until now.    

“We never had home field advantage because we didn’t have a gym,” said senior Maria Hornbacher, 17, the Cyclones’ Student Council president and varsity volleyball team member.

“It was too hot to practice outside so we went to a nearby Catholic school with a gym to practice,” she added as she took part in the dedication ceremony for the school’s new Wellness Center.

At the end of November, Archbishop Thomas Wenski blessed the 33,000 square foot, $7 million center, and formally opened it by cutting a blue and yellow ribbon alongside the school’s varsity volleyball team members. The school choir sang as the archbishop celebrated a “Thanksgiving” Mass with the help of Carrollton altar servers. Also present were most of the 750-member student body, who range in age from 3 to 18, along with faculty members, school staff, board of trustees members, parents, contractors and benefactors.

“Today, we give thanks to God for those who have made this Wellness Center possible,” the archbishop said. “This campus has always been a beautiful place and this new Wellness Center only enhances this beauty. This is a great addition to this school. Carrollton offers its students a solid platform for future success, but it does so because it offers a Christ-centered education.”

The school opened in 1961 under the leadership of the Religious of the Sacred Heart, who run a network of 22 schools in the United States and 150 schools internationally. Today the school has a multilingual, multicultural community of students, parents and faculty representative of every corner of the world.

Originally housed in a Coconut Grove estate home on Biscayne Bay, the school has since added several buildings to its waterfront campus. The Wellness Center has been a dream for the school’s headmistress, Sister Suzanne Cooke.

“It’s first and foremost a physical education facility,” said Sister Cooke. “Team athletes come in after 3:30 p.m. to practice. During the school day the younger girls learn to hold the ball and dribble. The facility covers all ages. My goal is that when our students go to college they can walk into a fitness room and know how to use the machines there.”

A balcony circles the basketball court, which is on the first floor of the two-story center. The new building includes a gymnastic studio for the school’s younger students, a weight-cardio room for the older girls, an indoor track, and athletic training facilities such as training tables and whirlpools. In addition there are offices for physical education teachers, the athletic director and team coaches.

Sister Cooke said that in preparation for the new facility, the school added a third physical education teacher. A schedule was worked out so that all the students can use the facility at some point during the day.

“I’m ecstatic and grateful,” she said. “It couldn’t have happened without the love, support and generosity and prayers of so many people.”

The gymnasium portion of the Wellness Center is named in honor of Nelson Rodriguez, who oversaw the building’s construction.“He was my eyes and ears on the project,” Sister Cooke said.

The Wellness Center itself is named after Tony Argiz and Mike Fernandez. All three men had daughters who graduated from Carrollton and are major benefactors. Argiz, whose two sons went to Belen Jesuit, said that he sent his daughter to Carrollton because it was the best Christ-centered education that he could give her.

“St. Madeleine Sophie Barat founded the society of the Sacred Heart in France in 1800,” Argiz said. “Sacred Heart educators have carried out her imperative of educational excellence for girls.”