Championship Caliber

Right in the heart of Lee County, nestled between Collier and Charlotte counties, is a campus of champions. That is the home of Florida SouthWestern College, a powerhouse in junior college sports. 

The women’s volleyball team recently won its third consecutive National Junior College Athletic Association title. Not surprisingly, volleyball coach Thais Baziquetto-Allen was named national coach of the year for the third consecutive year. The parade of the national championship began in 2021, only five years after FSW President Jeffrey Albritten revived athletics at the school formerly known as Edison State College and Edison Junior College. 

FSW has made a name for itself in recent years, but Southwest Florida has a rich history of both pro and amateur sports. Southwest Florida is not home to the National Football League, National Basketball Association or National Hockey League franchises, but it offers a vibrant variety of sports. 

Four Major League Baseball teams hold spring training in the area: the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins in Fort Myers, the Tampa Bay Rays in Port Charlotte, and the Atlanta Braves in North Port. The region’s connection to spring training dates back to 1925 when the Philadelphia A’s began training in Fort Myers. 

While the FSW Buccaneers have done well in junior college athletics, a short drive away at Florida Gulf Coast University, the Division 1 Eagles have a flourishing program that offers more than the five sports at FSW. 

The most successful FGCU program is women’s basketball, which has won seven consecutive Atlantic Sun Conference titles. The volleyball team recently won its fourth consecutive ASUN title. 

Basketball coach Karl Smesko started and built the women’s program and the rousing success attracted the attention of the Women’s National Basketball Association. He is now the head coach of the Atlanta Dream. 

The Florida Everblades have won three consecutive Kelly Cup titles, the championship of the ECHL, a minor-league hockey league. A new addition to the sports landscape this year is a pro soccer games at the Paradise Coast Sports Complex. This will be its inaugural season. 

The Fort Myers Might Mussels baseball team, under one name or another, has been around a lot longer than FC Naples. The Mussels are affiliated with the Minnesota Twins and play their home games at Hammond Stadium in the Lee Health Sports Complex. The Mussels were previously known as the Miracle and began playing at Hammond Stadium 1992, a year after it opened. 

At FSW 

Back at the campus of champions, FSW Athletic Director George Sanders works in his third-floor office of the Suncoast Credit Union Arena. This impressive 75,000-square-foot facility, with a seating capacity of 3,500, serves as the home for the school’s volleyball and basketball teams. It stands as the crown jewel among the campus’s athletic facilities, which also feature baseball and softball fields. 

This sports journey began when Albritten brought athletics back beginning 2016. 

“He wanted to do it right, and this building is the first testament to that and the work that he’s done in the community and continues to do to try to support the program and the college,” Sanders said. “This building is the benchmark, for lack of a better word, in the success of what he wanted to build and what he expected from the programs.” 

The arena plays a crucial role in recruiting athletes. “It’s an easy sell,” Sanders said. “The whole community is an easy sell. We have a great campus. We have an arena on campus, which is a little different than a lot of the junior colleges. We have the best arena in the country, and we have the beaches.” 

FSW actively recruits individuals from across the U.S. and beyond. The rosters feature athletes from various countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Honduras, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland and Slovakia. 

Finding the right coaches is also critical for Sanders. “I like people who understand us,” Sanders said. By “us” he means junior college athletics. “It’s a different world,” Sanders said. “You have constant turnover.” 

At four-year universities, students tend to stay longer. “We have to continue to realize that we’re a stepping stone institution,” Sanders said. By that, he means FSW is a gateway to four-year universities for many student-athletes. It’s also a gateway to professional sports for some. There are now more than 20 former FSW baseball players in professional baseball. 

 Finding the right people means people such as volleyball coach Thais Baziquetto-Allen, a native of Brazil. It also might mean softball coach Robert Iamurri, who coached Naples High School softball from 1986 to 2014 before starting up the FSW program. 

The first year for softball was 2016, when the Bucs were 53-16. Iamurri said administrative support and facilities have been key. Before on-campus fields were built for the FSW baseball and softball teams, they played at City of Palms Park in downtown Fort Myers. 

Another key to recruiting, according to Iamurri, is a dormitory. “So you had real nice dorms with 24/7 security,” Iamurri said. 

Players are just steps away from where they practice and play, and having a location in Florida is also beneficial. “Palm trees, white beaches,” Iamurri said. Those can be particularly appealing to players from Canada or Wisconsin. 

So is success. Iamurri could see players from the beginning were on-board with what he was trying to build. “They bought in,” Iamurri said. “They were not dominant, but there was a right mix to be competitive the first year.” 

Then came national titles in 2021 and 2022. Although the Bucs didn’t win the national championship in either 2023 or 2024 they still compiled a 111-15 record in those years. 

Everybody wins 

Volleyball is obviously the most important sport to volleyball coach Thais Baziquetto-Allen.

But she likes that all the sports do well at FSW and they help fuel each other. 

“It’s the culture,” Baziquetto-Allen said. “I remember right before I took the job, and I was in a place that was successful in volleyball… and there was maybe one other sport that was successful. But when I looked at FSW, everybody was successful, which means you have the support.” 

That means support from the administration and community. Recruiting in any sport is essential to success. 

 “We’re able to recruit players from all over the world,” Baziquetto-Allen said. She instills a certain approach in her athletes. “I think the players really buy in on the culture that we put together of working hard and knowing that even if we’re No. 1, people are going to come after us and try to beat us,” Baziquetto-Allen said. “So we have to be able to be very diligent in our training every day.” 

How does a volleyball coach in Fort Myers recruit players from other continents? “It’s just a network,” she said. There’s a network of volleyball people around the world. 

“So that you end up getting a lot of emails and then you create connections, create networks, and they end up knowing you and knowing your program and knowing the level of players you have,” Baziquetto-Allen said. 

With an international cast, she makes sure language is not an issue. “There is an English requirement to get admitted to FSW,” Baziquetto-Allen said. “And that’s very strict. Everybody has to pass English.” 

When she came to the U.S. as an 18-year-old to play at St. Petersburg College, the future FSW coach did not speak English. Now, she is fluent and makes sure English is her program’s lingua franca. 

“That’s one of the things that unites us,” Baziquetto-Allen said. 

“We’re all gonna speak the same language. You know, we have players from Argentina, Peru, and it would be easier for them just to start to speak Spanish, but they have to be very intentional about English and increasing your vocabulary.” 

The on-campus arena helps in recruiting. “That is one of the first things that we share with our athletes if we do a video call and then show it to them,” she said. “Whether we send them the pictures, whether our first video call is with the gym background. But that is a top-class facility, and it’s a big selling point of that place that we get to call home.” 

It’s a home of champions.