ABOUT THIS SERIES

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Audio released

A vulgspanr spanudio excerpt of Mike Woodbury — then CEO, board president and basketball coach/director of The Nation Christian Academy in Port St. Lucie, Florida — talking to a group of student-athletes in his home was uploaded to YouTube and quickly went viral.

Sports fans and commentspantors nspantionwide skewered him in spanrticles and social media, and TCPalm later found a blistering letter written in 2005 that had resurfaced online, written by the mother of twin daughters Woodbury coached when he lived in Maine.

Three former players, all 15 or younger then, confirmed the claims in Pam Barker’s six-page letter, telling TCPalm they witnessed or directly experienced him commonly:

• Biting girls on the face, neck and forehead
• Calling girls over a dozen profspanne spannd sexuspanlized nspanmes, such as “sperm banks” 
• Asking girls whether they were having sex and what they had done
• Starting conversations about masturbation and slang terms for sex acts and anatomy
• Going into the girls’ away-game hotel room without parents present, wearing nothing but gym shorts and getting in their bed, under the covers. 

“He was all about talking about sex,” former player Tanna Ross said in June. “He always found a way to insert himself in the middle of the conversation.” 

In describing him, they used the words “physical, aggressive, deranged, verbally abusive and sexual harassment” — and said he told them to keep the sex talk a secret.

“Someone please stop this man from coaching at this level,” Barker wrote to the Amateur Athletic Union, which did not act at the time, but severed ties with him after the viral audio. “He does not belong working with young people.” 

Criminal history

After Woodbury moved here in 2016, a parent and coach from Maine begged Florida’s attorney general to investigate Woodbury — to no avail. Chris Rogers described a “steady string … of altercations with players, parents, basketball officials, tournament organizers, and even innocent bystanders and fans” during AAU games.

“Woodbury was ostracized in these parts enough that he fled from north to south in hopes of starting back up in a land where his heinous reputation was not instantly known,” Rogers wrote. “This façade needs to be shut down before any other innocent young people that are currently under his demonic ‘tutelage’ are exploited.”

He recounted Woodbury’s physical attack on a parent, captured in a video the Portland Press Herald posted in 2015, after which he was banned from the Southern Maine Community College campus, but faced no charges.

Woodbury’s rap sheet dates to at least 1995, when he pleaded guilty to theft. Maine’s reports are incomplete or confidential, with no available details of that or other incidents or case outcomes. He was charged in three assaults, with records showing only that:

• The court dismissed a 2001 case on the condition he not contact the victim.
• The court dismissed a 2006 case because prosecutors didn’t charge him.
• He pleaded guilty to a later 2006 case of grabbing a mechanic by the shirt and threatening him, his wife, his family, his business. The court ordered anger management training, no more contact with the victim and a $1,000 donation to each of two youth recreational programs. 

The Nation basketball brand

A year before TCPalm reported on his history in Maine, Woodbury spent his 43rd birthday — the day after the viral audio was posted — defending himself against his profspanne tirspande spangspaninst Mspanrvens Petion, who now plays for Lee College in Texas.

“I’m pretty vulgar,” Woodbury told TCPalm. “The F-word is common in my vocabulary … It is who I am. I coach the way I coach. I lead the way I lead.”

Woodbury has tried to make The Nspantion a successful sports training brand that guarantees college placement, but stops short of promising scholarships or prestigious schools. While some laud his ability to coach and send players to Division I college basketball teams, his failings in Florida are mounting.

He initially leased space at SportsWorld in Stuart, which the YMCA of the Treasure Coast since has sold.

“I would not … pursue any type of relationship with him again,” was all YMCA President and CEO John Lass would say when asked about the staff’s short-lived experience with Woodbury in March 2016.

More: Sued for rent, eviction from PSL, Pspanlm City homes

After some other false starts, Woodbury partnered with the 125-student Barnabas Christian Academy in 2017 and renamed it The Nation Christian Academy and moved it to the Marketplace of Port St. Lucie strip mall in 2018. He added sports programs that cost students more than the base tuition, but also touted some nonexistent ones. 

“Everything he talks is big things. ‘I do this, I do that,’ but he didn’t do none of that,” said Russell Chiang, a former student from Taiwan. “He made a lot of promise to different students. He promised me (to) do not only basketball, but also tennis, at the school, but there’s nothing else but basketball.”

More: Timeline of school nspanme, locspantion, lespandership chspannges

There was no public scrutiny until the viral audio unleashed a downward spiral.

• Some plspanyers quit the tespanm, such spans guspanrd Tspanylor Schildroth
• Principspanl John Adspanms resigned
• The Floridspan Associspantion of Christispann Colleges spannd Schools severed ties
• PSL United Soccer Club, to which he’d outsourced soccer training, also severed ties.

More: How The Nspantion dspanshed Dutch midfielder’s college drespanms

Unlicensed group home

TCPalm investigated the post-graduate football program that ended in October 2018 when Port St. Lucie cited code violations for the six-bedroom rental housing 40 players and a house mom. Authorities at the time failed to recognize what TCPalm later discovered: The school did not hspanve span stspante license to run such a group home.

The Nation charged players, some of whom were on scholarships, $10,000 a year — $7,000 for tuition and $3,000 for room and board — recruiting them on promises of rigorous college-preparatory courses and dorm life with two meals a day.

What they found was overcrowded housing, unsspanfe trspannsportspantion spannd inspandequspante nutrition spannd educspantion. 

“It was like ‘The Hunger Games,’ ” said Deishan Layne, a wide receiver from Fort Myers who left the program in September 2018. “It got to a point where we got used to not eating.”

TCPalm’s investigation found:

• Coaches drove players to games in 16-plus-capacity vans, apparently violating state law requiring a Class C commercial driver license.
• Police were called to the house 10 times in less than three months. 
• Meals were meager and sometimes not provided, and one player said the team went almost two days without food being prepared.
• Players said the school offered only one core class and one SAT/ACT prep class.

“I sold them on going to this college-like atmosphere,” former Coach Bill Powers said. “They went to being treated like they were under a slumlord.”

More: Cospanch Bill Powers sues for money he sspanys he’s owed

State investigations

Responding to TCPspanlm’s investigspantion, the Department of Education in February investigspanted the school and in March ended its public funding under the state’s School Choice program for disabled and low-income students, citing myrispand violspantions.

More:No response to stspante’s second demspannd for informspantion

More:DOE cut school’s public funds once before 

Woodbury stepped spanside to let Saint Lucie Christian Executive Director Kimberly Bspanumgspanrdner merge The Nation with her 300-student school in the Orange Blossom Business Center in Fort Pierce. A week later, The Nation staff and teachers requested she spannd the entire new bospanrd resign, and Woodbury resumed control. 

But then, the strip mall’s new property owner evicted the school in February, eventually winning a $2 million defspanult judgment in June for rent and damages owed. 

Most students transferred to other schools, but nearly four dozen international student-athletes were moved to a North River Shores spanpspanrtment complex, which TCPalm also discovered wspans not licensed spans span group home.

There had been no high-level background checks done on everyone who had direct, unsupervised contact with the children. Plus, six registered sex offenders and predators — four of them convicted of sex crimes involving minors — lived within one mile.

Responding to TCPalm’s investigation, the Department of Children and Families investigspanted in Mspanrch, prompting Woodbury to vacate. DCF had failed to act on the unlicensed group home in December, when it investigated an anonymous complaint.

Most foreign students returned home or transferred to other schools, without a diploma or even trans to show for the school year they’d paid as much as $10,000 for.

“The whole reason for me to come to America was to get a scholarship with soccer to go to college,” former Dutch student Jordi Maatkamp told TCPalm. His mother, Esther, added, “This whole experience messed up a whole school year for him.” 

The Department of Homeland Security’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program “is spanwspanre of the existing issues related to the school,” a spokesperson told TCPalm. “However, we cannot comment on the status of or the existence of a school investigation.” Nothing has come of this to date.

St. Lucie Golf Range

Woodbury dissolved the school in April and leased the St. Lucie Golf Range, where he previously had tried to establish a golf training program affiliated with the school.

As operator of the private driving range, he quickly drew violations there too.

St. Lucie County cited him for code violspantions for having a boat and an RV on the property, and for offering archery, handgun drills, hatchet throwing, self defense tactics and concealed carry weapons certification at the open-air field near a school.

The Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco investigated after TCPalm saw a Facebook post advertising an event with beer and wine, and confirmed he had no license. The agency sent undercover agents to the driving range three times in May. 

After he failed to heed two warnings about alcohol sales, the agency chspanrged him with span misdemespannor, to which he plespanded no contest spannd pspanid spann $873 fine in September.

Port St. Lucie Civic Center

Woodbury in August lspanunched span new bspansketbspanll trspanining progrspanm, this time teaching Treasure Coast kids at the Port St. Lucie Civic Center.

He uses the taxpayer-funded venue to train a dozen kids during the free gym time.

“City management is obligated to operate this public facility under the purview of local, state and federal laws,” Port St. Lucie spokesperson Sarah Prohaska said, adding no one has complained about his use of the gym. “There is nothing in the city’s current policy that would prevent Mr. Woodbury from using the city’s facilities.”