Crossover Preparatory Academy

Crossover Prep Academy

by Philip Abode

Pictured Above: 2022 HCAA State Football Champion, Crossover Prep.

Tulsa Public Schools Middle School Championship Team, 2018 (8th Grade).

When we started the Crossover Lions youth football team in 2012, I had a strong sense that God wanted us to begin the comprehensive approach to serving our community that Justin and I had spent so much time talking, dreaming, and praying about. I was so convinced that 2012 was the time to start our program that nothing could stop me including seven weeks of radiation and chemotherapy. We started our first practice, while I still had a few more weeks of treatment to go. I remember walking around our practice field at Hawthorne Park with an umbrella to protect my radiated neck from the sun. Even though we started with just one football team, I believed that God wanted to take that team and do so much more with it than win a youth football championship. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to win a championship, and thankfully we did win it! But that year began Crossover and everyone involved down a path that we didn’t realize we were on.

The First Crossover Lions’ Championship Football Team, 2012 (Mighty Mite)

When we started the Crossover Lions, I hoped that an all-boy private school would become a reality. But at that time, we thought we were going to start young (kindergarten) and work our way up going through middle school and possibly going into high school. Everyone we talked to told us that running a high school just cost too much. So we thought starting with elementary and seeing what happened would be the wise thing to do. The one thing that always saddened me about that strategy though was seeing our parents get excited when we talked about the vision God had given us to start a school just to get letdown when we told them that their son would be too old because we were starting with kindergarten.

2015 Crossover Lions’ Championship Football Team (5th grade).

We also had trouble finding a leader for the school. Justin and I had several guys that we talked to about starting an all-boy elementary school who just didn’t sense God calling them to that. The school basically got put on the back burner as something that we “would do” someday. That all changed in 2015 when Cameron Walker, our Director of Development, told me about St. Benedict’s Prep, a 7th-12th allboy school that has achieved amazing results in Newark, NJ. Seeing that there was a school sending 98% of their students to college with 87% finishing college that started in 7th grade and not kindergarten, changed everything for Crossover. Instead of the school becoming something that would start someday, we realized that we had to start the school in 2017 because that was the year that the guys from our original team would start the 7th grade! It became so much of a priority that I decided to step in as the executive director to make sure that we could start on time. Shortly after that, God brought Dr. John Lepine Sr. our way to serve as principal. This year Crossover Prep will see its first seniors walk across the stage to get their diplomas and be launched into the world as Crossover Men. Of our eight graduates, two played on that first team and two more joined our championship team as third graders. I definitely didn’t see things shaping out this way, but now that we’re here, I wouldn’t change a thing!

Philip Abode is the Lead Pastor of Crossover Bible Church, the Executive Director of Crossover Preparatory Academy, and the Visionary behind the Crossover Community Center that is slated to open its doors in September 2023. He is also the Head Football Coach for Crossover Prep’s first Varsity Team and the first state champions for the Crossover Lions!

If you would like to learn more about Crossover Prep Academy, please go to http://crossoverprep.org.