Being a student athlete is tough enough, but when you are competing at the highest level on the court, and you are being challenged at the highest level off the court, something has to give.

That’s why The Rock School (TRS) has made the tough decision to dismantle the national team at the end of this season.

The Rock School is now an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School, serving students K-12 with an IB Programme.

“The Diploma Programme is academically challenging, and students may only enter the two-year programme as juniors, so it has become increasingly more challenging to find, recruit and retain students who can compete at the national level on the court and do the work necessary to participate in the IB programme,” said Justin Harden, The Rock School’s Student Life Director, Director of the Boys Basketball Program, and head coach of the national team. “In addition, our school has decided to limit the number of off-campus students who are allowed to participate on our athletic teams starting in 2026-2027. The combination of these two factors makes having a national team very challenging and one that we don’t believe can be sustained moving forward, unfortunately.”

In addition, Harden sent a lengthy text to the parents that read:

“As many of you know, this is my last year in my roles at The Rock School as Student Life Director, Director of the Boys Basketball Program, and Head Coach of the National Team. This decision was made in order to pursue an opportunity to serve as Athletic Director and Head Coach of the National Team at a start-up sports academy here in Gainesville, known as The Syndicate Academy.

Unfortunately, the development and building process for The Syndicate Academy has encountered setbacks that will not allow the school to fully open for the 2026–2027 season as originally planned. While the goal was to transition directly from The Rock to The Syndicate Academy next season, these delays have created a unique challenge that we must now navigate.

I could choose to take a year away from coaching and focus solely on the growth and preparation of The Syndicate Academy for its inaugural 2027–2028 school year. However, stepping away from coaching, and from the daily opportunity to positively impact the lives of student-athletes through basketball, is not an easy decision for me.”

The Rock used to be a Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) member school. In fact, the Lions were Class 1A state runners-up in 2007 under head coach Svend Wilbekin.

Harden started in 2005 as a volunteer assistant coach under Wilbekin because he “wanted to get involved in sharing my faith through basketball.

“I was at UF working towards getting my master’s degree in physical education and had plans to graduate and go coach high school basketball,” said Harden, who eventually became head coach in 2009. “I anticipated leaving Gainesville to do that, but God had other plans. After four years as an assistant coach, Svend was ready to step down and promote me to head coach. I thought I would be there for 5 years before moving on to be a college coach. Apparently, I was very wrong about that as this is now my 17th year.”

TRS was a charter member of the Sunshine Independent Athletic Association (SIAA), which began in 2010.

Harden said that at that time, they considered their highest-level teams as varsity teams, but after a few years, they decided to create a distinction as they were adding as many as four teams, so they created the titles Varsity A and Varsity B in 2014.

A year later, they changed to National and Regional, as most of the national teams were competing in events throughout the nation, and the regional teams were competing against teams throughout the Southeast region of the US.

“So, at The Rock, this is when we differentiated our highest-level team as National, and in 2022, we designated our second team as Varsity so that area teams would be more inclined to play them because they didn’t understand what a regional team meant,” Harden said.

Scottie Wilbekin, who left TRS after his junior year and attended the University of Florida, where he was the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year in 2014, and Joel Embiid (University of Kansas/Philadelphia 76ers) are two of 42 players from TRS who ended up playing Division-I basketball.

Embiid, the 2023 NBA MVP, spent his senior season leading The Rock to a 33-4 record and a state championship.

TRS, winners of four of the last seven state titles, won it all in 2013, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2024.

“Being able to coach in one place for this long has been amazing,” Harden said. “I have been able to build some great, lasting relationships with various people, and build a culture within our program that allows new players to feel welcomed, current players to feel valued, and former players to always feel loved. I didn’t do that on my own as our assistant coaches have had an enormous impact on our culture and our players.”

The Rock plans to apply to the FHSAA to be readmitted as a full member. After 16 years as a member of the SIAA, they will return to competing in the FHSAA “so that all athletics teams at The Rock will be under the FHSAA umbrella.”

Harden said that if accepted, The Rock would undergo a three-year probationary period:

• Year 1: Ineligible for district and state championships
• Years 2 and 3: Ineligible for state championships

“This means that current freshmen, sophomores, and juniors would not have the opportunity to compete for a state championship during their high school careers,” Harden said in the text. “Additionally, dual participation in the SIAA would not be permitted.”

A total of 70% of this year’s national team roster is made up of seniors, including D-I signees Joseph Hartman (Michigan), Trace Westercamp (Florida Gulf Coast University) and Hendrix Loughridge (Lipscomb University).

However, the varsity team only has one senior, so players will have a difficult decision to make at the end of the 2025-26 season.

Some of them had aspirations of playing on the national team.

“Our family is very grateful for the opportunity to work with the entire coaching staff and build such meaningful relationships while we could,” said Josh McCumber, whose son Evan is a junior on the varsity team. “Their ability to mentor and lead our son’s development while on the Varsity team his junior year was invaluable. We are sad that the National Team will not be an option at The Rock in the future, but hope Coach Harden and The Rock School will have great success in the future.“

For now, it’s about the immediate future.

On Friday at 7:30 p.m., the Rock’s national team (8-2) will host Andrew Jackson (Jacksonville).

The visiting Tigers (16-1) finished 28-3 last season, including a 57-55 loss to The Villages Charter in the Class 3A state semifinals.

“Having played and defeated Andrew Jackson earlier this season, along with some of our recent success over the winter break, we are heading into this contest with confidence,” Harden said. “We seem to have found a rhythm in our nine-man rotation and are starting to see the fruit of some of the obstacles we had to overcome earlier in the season when we had three players out with injuries for the month of November. We will respect Andrew Jackson and the team/program they have, as Coach Boyd will have his players ready to compete.”

The regular season ends on Feb. 13 at home against IMG Academy (Bradenton), followed by the SIAA State Tournament semifinals and finals at Daytona State College the final weekend of February. First round and quarterfinal games are held at the home of the higher seed.

“We hope to host a quarterfinal game before going to Daytona to compete for another SIAA state championship and put a bow on this season and run at The Rock School.”