Special to The Laker/Lutz News

Christian Business Connections makes donation

Christian Business Connections, a group that meets on Thursdays from 7:30 to 9 a.m., donated $250 to Campus Crusade For Christ. The money was generated from member dues. To find out more about Christian Business Connections go to www.cbccentralpasco.com or contact Rene Van Hout at (813) 300-7511.

Habitat for Humanity ReStore

The Zephyrhills ReStore shop needs extra volunteers to sort and clean donations as the store gets a reset during the week of Aug. 6 through Aug. 11.

Volunteers also are needed to paint, install new lighting and build store fixtures.

Helpers are invited to come to the store from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Those wishing to sign up ahead of time can reserve a spot by visiting www.habitatpasco.org and clicking on the “take action” tab.

 

Hillsborough Commissioner Beckner honored

The Florida Insurance Fraud Education Committee honored Hillsborough Commissioner Kevin Beckner for his efforts to fight against auto insurance fraud in the county.

In a news release, Beckner said, “I am honored to receive this special award from the Florida Insurance Fraud Education Committee on behalf of the collaborative efforts of the insurance industry of Florida, medical professionals and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.”

Beckner recognized that law enforcement organizations were hampered in their ability to combat this fraud due to lax regulations. He worked for more than a year with the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office and other stakeholders to get a county ordinance passed requiring the licensing of any medical clinic that provides treatment or therapy to patients claiming injury due to an auto accident.

The Hillsborough Commission unanimously adopted the ordinance on Sept. 21, 2011. The Florida Legislature used the law as a model to shape a bill signed in May.

 

Local Hampton Inn & Suites hotels honored

Two area Hampton Hotels received a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence award.

The accolade, which honors hospitality excellence, is given only to establishments that consistently achieve outstanding traveler reviews on TripAdvisor, and is extended to qualifying businesses worldwide.

Approximately 10 percent of accommodations listed on TripAdvisor receive this prestigious award.

The local hotels that received the award are:

—Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa/Wesley Chapel at 2740 Cypress Ridge Blvd.

—Hampton Inn Dade City/Zephyrhills at 13215 US 301

 

MOSI voted ‘Favorite Place to Take the Kids’

The results are in for the inaugural iHeart Tampa Bay awards and the Museum of Science & Industry (MOSI) was voted the “Favorite Place to Take the Kids” by a sizable margin. The iHeart Tampa Bay awards began in April with listener nominations for many different categories, including Best Tampa Bay Sports Team, Best Amusement Park, Best College/University and many more. Beginning on May 15, for one month, Tampa Bay residents cast their online ballots for all their local favorites.

For more information on MOSI, visit MOSI.org or call (813) 987-6000.

 

Florida Hospital Zephyrhills workers help food banks

Florida Hospital Zephyrhills, in cooperation with The Samaritan Project and the Zephyrhills Woman’s Club, had a drive to gather donations for food and toiletries to

support the WWJD Food Bank at Chancey Road Christian Church in Zephyrhills and the Helping Hands Food Pantry at Atonement Lutheran Church in Wesley Chapel.

The drive rallied hospital employees to donate food items and basic toiletries, including shampoo, toothpaste and soap. Overall, 17 large boxes of items were collected from 18 different hospital departments to benefit both organizations. The drive was from May 21 through June 5 at the hospital.

Those interested in donating or volunteering should contact either the Chancey Road Christian Church at (813) 788-4881 or the Atonement Lutheran Church at (813) 973-2211.

 

Military discount offered by William Ryan Homes

As part of its 20th anniversary celebration, William Ryan Homes is offering all active-duty military men and women a 50 percent discount on structural options, up to $15,000, with the purchase of a new home.

Eligible military personnel can select from options including room expansions, a gourmet kitchen or a bonus room, to name a few.

The program is part of William Ryan Homes’ ongoing efforts on behalf of the military men and women who serve our country here and abroad, said regional president Jeffrey Thorson. This is the second major military-related program shepherded in the Tampa Bay area by this national builder in recent months.

Late last year, Thorson started the construction and donation of a mortgage-free home to Army Sgt. Joe Tavera, a Tampa resident who was wounded in the Iraq. The donation was made through the Building Homes for Heroes program.

William Ryan Homes builds in communities throughout the Tampa Bay area. Some of its residences can be found at Grand Hampton in Tampa and Ashton Oaks in Wesley Chapel. A model center also opened recently at Deerfield Lakes, off SR 52 in north Pasco County. For more information, visit www.WilliamRyanHomes.com.

Rotary Club of New Tampa helps local groups

The Rotary Club of New Tampa provided help for 19 charities and organizations at its June 13 meeting. That’s on top of the 17 projects or organizations it supported during the previous 12 months.

Overall, the group raised more than $44,000 to support school projects, food pantries, the American Cancer Society Relay for Life, disaster aid and various projects supported by Rotary groups.

By Kyle LoJacono

Darby Frankfurth has grown up in the New Tampa Juniorettes club, spending countless hours volunteering to make the Tampa Bay area a better place.

Now, the Wharton High senior has the chance to shape the future of the organization. Darby was elected state director of the Juniorettes by her peers at the group’s annual summer meeting in Gainesville on June 22.

“I definitely feel really honored,” Darby said. “For them to choose me, I feel really confident because they did vote for me. I feel really thankful for them to have the confidence in me to be their state director.”

She will serve as the director for one year, where she will work with other branches of the General Federation of Woman’s Clubs (GFWC) within the state to further the organization’s volunteerism.

Her mother, Jolie, just concluded her two-year term as the director of the Juniors, which is for women ages 18 to 40. It is only the second time since the Juniorettes formed in 1983 that a mother and daughter have served as directors for the two organizations.

Darby was introduced to the organization when Jolie became a charter member of the New Tampa Junior Woman’s Club in 1997. She joined the Juniorettes, the branch of the GFWC for those ages 12 to 18, while a sixth-grader at Terrace Community Middle.

“My mom has been a part of it for a long time, so when I was old enough I wanted to try it out too,” Darby said. She added, “We volunteer a lot, and I love being able to help people.”

She has done a lot of helping in her six years with the Juniorettes, including chipping in at Feeding America Tampa Bay, along with building Personal Energy Transportation (PET) vehicles.

“They make this kind of like bicycles with a trunk, and they’re for people in Third World countries,” Darby said. “They can hand-pedal them so they can move food and things that they sell. We put them together and pack them in boxes to send to those countries.”

Jolie said building the PETs was the “coolest” think she has seen the Juniorettes do.

“They taught them how to use screwdrivers and hammers to build these things,” Jolie said. She added. “It was so cool to see the girls build them and to know how it’s helping people. They’ve been doing that since Darby started with the Juniorettes.”

Darby also had the honor of planting the 1,000th pinwheel at GFWC state headquarters in Lakeland.

Creating the pinwheel garden is meant to bring attention to fighting child abuse, and Darby has chosen domestic violence awareness as her theme for the year.

“Earlier this year we had somebody come and talk to us about teen dating and being safe,” Darby said. “I wanted to incorporate that into it because all the Juniorettes are teenagers. It would help them to be safe while dating and seeing the signs of an abuser. … I want to encourage all the Juniorettes to be a part of some kind of domestic violence prevention organization, like a shelter or something like that.”

Along with her new role, Darby was also the previous leadership coordinator for the state Juniorettes board and former president of the New Tampa Juniorettes.

“She has become a leader because of Juniorettes, but she has also seen the downtrodden,” Jolie said. “She’s been to downtown Tampa working with the missions and feeding the hungry. I think kids grow in a different direction when they see what could be, and it’s so easy in the economy today for people to be living on the street. … Most of the kids in the New Tampa area are used to getting what they want. The best thing for (Darby) is to go out there and see that there are a lot of people less fortunate.”

The New Tampa Juniorettes is accepting new members. Those interested should visit www.GFWCNewTampaJuniors.org/Juniorettes.

By B.C. Manion

The rivalry between swimmers Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte will play out on a world stage and amazing feats of track and field stars may capture global attention.

But behind the scenes there’s a network of people who will be in London tending to the athletes’ needs during the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Two of those people are from Lutz.

Asif Shaikh, who pronounces his name Ah-sif Shake, and his wife, Leaha, will be at the XXX Olympiad. They’ll be focused on the spiritual needs of the athletes who are converging in Great Britain for the international games.

The Lutz couple is excited about the opportunity.

They know they will enjoy seeing the sights in London and soaking in the excitement of the global sporting event, but their motivation for making the trip goes well beyond that.

Like the athletes they’ll be serving, they are focused on a mission.

“It’s a calling, maybe something that we would have not chosen,” Leaha said, but she said she and her husband feel compelled to share their Christian faith.

“We’re not there to go to the events,” Asif said. “We’re working. We’re not on vacation. By the time we put our head on the pillow at night, we will be dead tired.”

Leaha said she hopes “to at least connect on a heart level with one athlete.”

Asif and Leaha are among 10 chaplains from the United States who will work with Team USA, as representatives of Athletes in Action, which is the sports ministry for Campus Crusade for Christ.

Normally, the couple works for Athletes in Action serving student-athletes at the University of South Florida.

Asif and Leaha said they’re eager to serve.

The idea of interacting with world-class athletes is nothing new for Asif. He recently returned from the 2012 U.S. Olympic track team trials in Eugene, Ore., where he offered daily chapel gatherings for the athletes competing to be on Team USA.

The athletes came to worship and to pray, said Asif, who was born in Pakistan and was raised as a Muslim before converting to Christianity when he was 11 years old.

Asif was also a chaplain to the U.S. soccer team at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa two years ago, and last year he served in the same capacity at the track and field IAFF World Championship Athletics in Daegu, South Korea and the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Asif and Leaha are not intimidated by the athletes’ international status. Rather, they view them as being human, like everyone else.

Many athletes are young and some are at the Olympics by themselves, Asif noted.

Sometimes difficulties arise in their personal lives — a death in the family, a divorce or some other tragedy — at the same time they are facing an athletic challenge for which they’ve been training for years to take on.

“They’re in front of the whole country, the whole world. Who do they turn to?” Asif asked.

“We represent a neutral person they can go to,” Leaha said.

Asif plans to spend three weeks in London, while Leaha will be there for a week. The games run from July 27 to Aug. 12.

While the couple is away, Leaha’s mom will be looking after the couple’s daughters, Makenna, 9, and Janessa, 6.

In addition to this year’s Olympics, Asif plans to travel to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil.

He’s excited about reaching out to athletes from all over the world, especially those who do not enjoy religious freedom in their homeland.

John Benedetto leaves lasting impression on Gators football

By Kyle LoJacono

It’s nearly impossible to measure the impact John Benedetto had on Land O’ Lakes High football and the surrounding community.

Benedetto, 65, spent 34 years with the Gators’ program, 32 as the head coach. While at the helm, he won a Pasco County-record 196 games to 149 losses with 18 winning seasons and 17 playoff berths, including 12 straight trips to the postseason to close his tenure.

For his contributions, the Pasco School Board unanimously voted June 19 to rename Land O’ Lakes’ arena John Benedetto Stadium. The motion was suggested by a group of community leaders, including state Rep. Will Weatherford, who played linebacker for Benedetto.

“There are a lot of other stadiums named after coaches who in their own right have done some great things, but to me what he did was profound,” Will said. “He affected hundreds if not thousands of young men’s lives.”

The journey to everlasting status started when Benedetto came to Tampa Bay in the 1960s.

 

Before the sidelines

Benedetto moved from Long Island to play wide receiver for the University of Tampa (UT). He played four years at UT and was inducted into the Spartans’ athletic hall of fame.

After graduating in 1970, Benedetto started teaching physical education at Sanders Memorial Junior High. The spot opened when Jerry English became an administrator.

“Jerry is the guy who hired me at Sanders and brought me into the Land O’ Lakes community,” Benedetto said. “If it wasn’t for him I might have worked in Tampa or Carrollwood or somewhere else.”

English also hired Al Claggett.

“I was the football coach at Sanders for three years before they bumped me to administration, and my principal told me to find some good coaches,” English said. “I knew John from playing softball. We hired him and coach Claggett. They coached together at Sanders and then at Land O’ Lakes until John retired, so I guess we found some good coaches.”

Benedetto coached seventh- and eighth-grade football for three years at Sanders before moving to Land O’ Lakes Junior-Senior High in 1974. It became Land O’ Lakes High the next year.

 

To the high school ranks

Benedetto coached wide receivers at Land O’ Lakes in 1975 and 1976, the first two seasons for the school, but that wasn’t his only responsibility.

“Back then we did a lot,” Benedetto said with a laugh. “I was the assistant for varsity (football) and coached the freshman team. I was also the junior varsity basketball coach and junior varsity baseball coach along with teaching PE.”

The Gators went 1-9 and 5-5 in their first two seasons, respectively, both with Dan Sikes as coach.

“I remember our first varsity football game in 1975,” Benedetto said. “We played up at Wildwood, and they beat us 50-0. You could just see the look in our kids’ eyes. Their eyes were big, and it seemed a lot of them were afraid. The game only made things worse for us. That was pretty tough for us coaches to try and settle things down and teach the game to the kids to at least be competitive that first year.”

Michael Keough was a senior quarterback in 1976, his only year with the squad. His family moved from St. Petersburg.

“From my perspective just moving up there, the immediate thing I noticed was he was quite the athlete,” Keough said of Benedetto. “He used to run patterns for me in practice to show the players how do them. He taught me a lot by working with me and the receivers. … All the players had a tremendous amount of respect for him.”

Keough returned to coach quarterbacks for Land O’ Lakes for 11 years, including Benedetto’s final eight seasons.

Benedetto got the chance to lead the program in 1977 when Sikes left to coach at Zephyrhills High.

“Dan Sikes told me when he was leaving after he heard I was applying for the job, he said ‘You know you’ll never win here at Land O’ Lakes High School’,” Benedetto said.

Sikes never made the playoffs at Zephyrhills.

 

The early seasons

Benedetto got his first win over Sikes and Zephyrhills on Sept. 9, 1977.

Mark Peterson kicked a field goal to send the Gators out victorious, 3-0. Benedetto remembers it as “one of the ugliest” wins of his career, but that was to be expected at a place with no history.

“What was happening was before the school opened was all the kids in the Land O’ Lakes area were being bused to Dade City,” Benedetto said. “They were going to Pasco High School, and that’s a good 30 miles. Because they were being bused, hardly any of them were playing football. In 1975 when the high school was built, then those kids had an opportunity to get into athletics.”

Benedetto did have the benefit of coaching many of his players before they entered high school.

“I was coaching them in PE since the third grade at Sanders,” Benedetto said. “I stayed with them through high school, so we could work with them when they became seventh-graders right on through their senior years, and they became pretty darn good football players.”

Land O’ Lakes went 4-6 in Benedetto’s first season. The squad improved to 7-4 the next year, along with collecting the program’s first district championship.

Benedetto said the key to the fast turnaround was creating a fundamentally sound team.

“We always wanted to build a well-rounded team that did the little things right and didn’t do things to beat ourselves,” Benedetto said.

That mentality is what sticks out to John Castelamare, who coached against Benedetto for 23 years while at Ridgewood and Wesley Chapel.

“We had many wars in that stadium,” said Castelamare, who now coaches at Academy at the Lakes. “We had some last-minute wins on our side and some last-minute wins on his side. … Nobody who played them thought it was going to be easy to win. Didn’t matter how good your team was, they were going to play tough. It was always a well-prepared team.”

Will said he was always ready to play because of Benedetto’s game plan and personality.

“You just never knew what you were going to get with him, but he was a great motivator,” Will said. “He was the kind of coach you wanted to please. He wasn’t easy to please, but you wanted to please him. He has a great sense of humor, and you could tell he really loved his job.”

 

The Streak

That’s what it is known as — The Streak. It started in 1997 when the Gators got into the playoffs. Benedetto led Land O’ Lakes to the postseason the next 11 years, setting a county record with 12 straight trips.

“It wasn’t just the fact that we made the playoffs the last 12 years, but we also won the district championship six of the last seven seasons,” Benedetto said. “That was a pretty big accomplishment.”

Will was a senior on that 1997 team.

“My first season on varsity I was a sophomore and we went 1-9,” Will said. “We were awful. We played a lot of sophomores and freshman. My junior year we were 3-7, getting better but still very young. My senior year we were 6-4 and went to the playoffs, and that started The Streak. It went all the way until my little brother Stephen, who is the youngest of my brothers, graduated. I was lucky enough to be a part of that playoff streak.”

The Streak included the program’s only trips to the regional finals, coming in 2002 and 2003. Quarterbacking those teams was Will’s younger brother, Drew.

“My relationship with coach Benedetto goes back a long way,” Drew said. “When my brother Will was there I was the water boy with coach Benedetto’s son Giovanni, who is my best friend. So I grew up on the sidelines of Gators Stadium, now to be called John Benedetto Stadium, my whole life.”

Drew, who called Benedetto a second father figure, started every game under center beginning his freshman year in 2000, which he believes helped him earn a spot playing at Florida State University.

“He saw my work ethic and believed in me as a freshman,” Drew said. “We had a quarterback who was going to be a senior who was really good, but he took a leap of faith to give me an opportunity. I think that made all the difference in my career in high school and in college.”

Will said Benedetto always made it fun to be around the program. He added the notoriety of The Streak cemented Benedetto’s legacy, created the program’s tradition and helped get kids into college.

“He’s the winningest coach in Pasco history,” Will said. “The guy had a 12-year playoff streak, produced a ton of Division I athletes. If you just look at the body of work, I mean he is and was Land O’ Lakes football. He started that program from scratch, built it up and left it in great condition. That’s rare. Pasco County has had a lot of great coaches, but none have had a 12-year playoff streak or have that amount of wins.”

 

Culture of consistency

The Streak lived on past the coach that started it.

Benedetto was forced to retire after the 2008 season, his fifth year in the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP). The Gators made the playoffs two more times before The Streak was snapped in 2011.

The Streak itself symbolized the stability of Benedetto’s tenure. Sikes lasted two years at the helm, as did Benedetto’s replacement Matt Kitchie. Current Land O’ Lakes coach Brian Wachtel is entering his second season.

Benedetto also had loyalty with his staff.

“Al Claggett (defensive coordinator) and Bill Gebauer (defensive backs coach) spent the entire 32 years with me as my assistants,” Benedetto said. “I really want to thank them for their time and service because they could have been head coaches.”

Tom Carter, one of Benedetto’s players and current coach at Gulf, was on Benedetto’s staff for 20 years (1988 to 2008).

Rock Ridgeway joined the staff in 1992. He and Gebauer coached their final season with the program last year. English spent 28 years on those sidelines (1975 to 2003).

Keough said Benedetto’s longevity also had to do with his ability to change.

“The thing that I think is amazing was how different Land O’ Lakes was in the 70s, and the goals of the kids were much different from then into the 2000s,” Keough said. “He was able to adapt to the players throughout the years.”

Keough pointed out the support Benedetto’s wife, Vanie, gave to the program.

“Vanie was also a big part of his success,” Keough said. “There are so many things that she did, that I don’t know them all. She cooked us dinner, she washed our clothing and she did all the filming. She helped make that program special.”

Drew said Benedetto’s impact on the community for decades makes the renaming of Land O’ Lakes’ stadium appropriate.

“It’s one thing to have success, but there’s another thing to be said about having success for a long period of time,” Drew said. “There’s not a more worthy person to receive that honor, not only because of the wins, but because of the impact he made on the lives of so many students.”

 

Impact away from football

Benedetto helped take Land O’ Lakes from a fledgling program to one with some of the greatest tradition in Tampa Bay, but his impact stretched beyond the field.

Will recounted how one meeting with Benedetto shaped his life.

“My sophomore year I was hanging out with a rough bunch,” Will said. “I was starting to pick bad friends, and it was affecting my school and my athletic career. I remember coach Benedetto pulled me into a room with some other coaches and said he was worried about me.

“He encouraged me to be a leader and make good decisions,” Will continued. “That really had a profound impact on me. It bothered me that he saw me in that light. I remember thinking at age 15 that I never want to have another teacher or coach ever think of me that way again. It really altered my priorities.”

Drew said he uses what he learned from Benedetto every day while working with his co-owned company, Strategos Public Affairs.

“He drove you to be the best that you could be, and I think that carries over,” Drew said. “I get up and try to work hard every day in the job I have, and a lot of those things were instilled from him at that very impressionable age as a high school student.”

Benedetto changed Drew in another way.

“I was always Andrew my whole life,” Drew said. “Everyone in my family and on sports teams called me Andrew. Ultimately I think he thought Drew had a better ring, and he started calling me Drew. When I got into high school, I remember him asking me what I wanted to be called because newspapers were doing stories on the team. I thought it was pretty special that he started calling me that, and from that point on I’ve been Drew.”

 

John Benedetto Stadium

Among those who attended the June 19 school board meeting were Will, Drew, English, Castelamare and Keough.

“When I spoke that first time in front of the school board, I told them he always put the kids first,” Keough said. “Time and time again he’d say, ‘What is best for this kid.’ ”

Castelamare added, “When I was talking to the school board I told them they had a package deal with (Benedetto). You’ve got a great coach and a great family man, he created great tradition at the school and top it all off he’s Italian. When I first met him I already liked him because he’s Italian like me. We were friends through all those wars, and it was an honor for me to be there and talk for him.”

Benedetto said having so many people push for the naming of the stadium means “the world” to him — almost as much as spending 32 years on the Gators’ sidelines.

“It’s difficult to really put into words what it meant to me,” Benedetto said. “I developed a great relationship with the community, the parents and most importantly the students. One of the greatest things about coaching for as long as I did is getting to see former players come by at games after not seeing them for years. There they are and they have their wives and little kids. That’s the best thing a coach can see is success of those kids after they’re gone.”