Former Head of School Susan Grady traces the beginning of Tampa Preparatory School to a conversation between University of Tampa (UT) President Dr. B.D. Owens and South Tampa developer Al Austin at a football game in the early ‘70s.
“It was from that meeting that the genesis of Tampa Prep began,” she says. The two men discussed their vision of a nonsectarian, coeducational school located in an urban setting, and decided to make it happen.
On Sept. 16, 1974, 40 young men and women filtered into an old livestock barn on the edge of University of Tampa’s campus in an area formerly part of the old Florida Fairgrounds. The converted stables lacked windows, and flooding from heavy rain often cancelled classes.