Springfield native, former OSU quarterback joining others in bid to purchase Urbana University property
Braxton Miller, Troy Smith and Miller’s uncle want to turn the campus into a prep school.
Springfield native and former Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller is part of a group interested in purchasing the former Urbana University campus and converting the facility into a prep school.
Fellow former Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith would also be part of the venture along with Paul Miller, Braxton’s uncle.
The school, which Braxton Miller likened to a Midwest version of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., would be called Urbana Prep and Sports Institute.
“My Uncle Paul reached out to me about the acquisition with the campus shutting down,” Braxton Miller said. “It was a great opportunity to make my dream come true to have a school in the Midwest, do something big in the Midwest, to bring sports to the Midwest in that format.”
IMG Academy began as a tennis academy in 1978 but has grown into a training ground for elite athletes with teams competing in numerous sports, including football, baseball, basketball, soccer and lacrosse. It sits on more than 600 acres and includes a boarding school for kids in sixth-12th grade along with year-round camps and training activities.
The school has produced top-ranked tennis and golf players as well as highly-recruited football and basketball players who attended colleges throughout the country.
Urbana University operated from 1850 until last year when it was shut down by Franklin University, which purchased the school in 2014 and ran it as a branch campus. Franklin cited declining enrollment and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic when announcing the decision to close in March 2020.
Urbana competed at the Division II level of the NCAA and sponsored 21 teams, including football, soccer, basketball, volleyball, baseball and wrestling, and the school had recently upgraded some of its athletic facilities.
Covering more than 50,000 square acres, the campus has 22 buildings including dormitories, a theater and unused land.
“Having something like this that already has all the facilities that we need, it was a great idea, a great opportunity for us to jump on it and try to attack the process of creating our own school,” Braxton Miller said.
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