Olympics: Middleburg Academy Grad Azania Stewart Playing for Host Great Britain in Olympics

photo courtesy University of Florida

Middleburg (July 30, 2012) - Azania Stewart, who graduated from Middleburg Academy (then Notre Dame Academy) in 2008, is playing for Great Britain's 12-member Olympic basketball squad, a team making its first-ever appearance in the international games.

London, her hometown, had been announced as the venue for the 2012 games just as Stewart arrived in Middleburg, at age 15, to begin her U.S. high school career.

Boys Basketball: Two Stone Bridge Players Transfer to Middleburg Academy including Liberty District Player of the Year Nik Brown

(July 24, 2010) - Liberty District Player of the Year Nik Brown, a first team all-Northern Region pick and one of the top scorers in the Washington DC metro area with a 22.2 points per game average last season, has officially transferred, along with teammate Jimmy Paige, from Stone Bridge High School to Middleburg Academy.

Brown, a rising senior, and Paige, a promising rising sophomore, become the first two high-profile transfers to Middleburg Academy -- formerly known as Notre Dame Academy -- since former Herndon High School coach Gary Hall took over the boys basketball program in April.

"I felt like at Stone Bridge I did all I could do .. the move is nothing against Stone Bridge or coach (Sonny) Green," said Brown on Friday as he was in Las Vegas preparing for a showcase basketball tournament.

Brown, a 6-foot-3 guard, said Middleburg's strength of schedule was a big factor in his decision.

Boys Basketball: Villanova Star Reynolds Weighs in on Hall's Move to Notre Dame Academy

(Apr. 15, 2010) - Villanova senior Scottie Reynolds is about two months away from a possible NBA career -- mock drafts have the former Herndon High School standout going as high as the second round -- but the news this week that Gary Hall had become the new boys basketball coach at Notre Dame Academy caught Reynolds eye for sure.

"Notre Dame Academy has a new No. 1 fan," Reynold said with a laugh this week in a phone interview with VivaLoudoun editor Dan Sousa.

Boys Basketball: Former Herndon Coach, Current Briar Woods Assistant, Gary Hall to Take Over Notre Dame Academy Program

(Apr. 12, 2010) - Former Herndon High School boys basketball coach Gary Hall, who most recently has been an assistant at Briar Woods High School, has agreed to take over the Notre Dame Academy boys program in Middleburg.

Hall -- who coached NBA star Grant Hill and current Villanova standout Scottie Reynolds among 27 players who went onto the college ranks -- stepped down at Herndon in 2007 with a career record of 319-136 to spend more time with his twin daughters as they started their high school careers at Briar Woods.

"I didn't want to miss their games at Briar Woods," said Hall, who helped with the Falcons girls program at first, and then the boys program under Mike Benson most recently, and is ready now to get back into fulltime coaching that his daughters are headed to college in the fall -- one to Baylor and the other to TCU.

While Hall entertained the idea of going for openings in Fairfax County, where he still teaches at Herndon, or applying for one of the positions at the two new Loudoun high schools opening in the fall -- Tuscarora in Leesburg and Woodgrove in Purcellville -- he felt like going to another public high school would almost be "anti-climatic".

"At Herndon, for 18 years, we accomplished everything you could hope to," said Hall.

While the Notre Dame program, which was dialed back the last couple of years after a run on the national stage that featured recruited players from afar, some from Europe, Hall says he wants a program more akin to what Flint Hill has build in Fairfax rather than something like a Montrose Christian.