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Yes, athletics are important at Bridgton Academy. Major universities have interest in some players. But academics also are important and students, while working in the library, have a spectacular view of Highland Lake and the autumn foliage.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Patrick Shairs, teaching a literature class, works with students who were primarily star athletes in their high schools.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Bridgton Academy is the only college preparatory school in the country whose student body – all male – consists entirely of high school graduates.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Every fall, some 200 students arrive at Bridgton Academy. They’re all male. They arrive for both academics and athletics, to bridge the gap between high school and college in an environment that gives them the best possible chance to excel at both.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Virtually every minute is planned for the students, including chapel, a morning meeting for the staff and students.

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Bridgton Academy Coach Rick Marcella has football players who understand they play for the love of the game.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Pat Daley, who played at Lake Region High, is the third of three brothers who went on to play for Bridgton Academy.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Drew Inzer, the offensive line coach and history buff, was a member of the New England Patriots’ practice squad in 2001.

NORTH BRIDGTON — Tucked on a hillside in western Maine, the white buildings of Bridgton Academy rise up steeply, the centerpiece to golden colors of fall radiating in sunlight. Young men engage in horseplay on the sidewalk, others scurry to class with backpacks, wide shoulders and long gaits.

By afternoon the playing fields are alive with chatter and the sounds of practice. Football, soccer, fall baseball.

It could be any school, New England.

But a closer look reveals something much different. Here, 18- and 19-year-old males get their second chance in the classroom and on the playing field before heading off to college.

Bridgton Academy is the only college preparatory school in the country whose student body – all male – consists entirely of high school graduates. Though a small percentage of students are not athletes, most are young men with dreams of playing NCAA sports. One hundred ninety-three are enrolled this year, the school's 200th anniversary.

"There's no pep rally. No cheerleaders. No article in the paper," said football coach Rick Marcella. "You play because you love the game and we're going to get you prepared for college athletics and academics."

Every fall some 200 students arrive. More than half of this year's class is from New England, but in all there are students from 26 states and two foreign countries.

They learn the playbook. And they learn the ropes of studying in the classroom, where the student-to-faculty ratio is 9 to 1.

The school's alumni boast a college graduation rate of 70 percent, with the average completion rate of a bachelor's degree in 41/2 years.

Giovanni Clayborne, a 6-foot, 187-pound linebacker from San Jose, Calif., is relishing his second chance.

Expelled from his California high school as a freshman for fighting with boys about not joining a gang, Clayborne and his mom and sister moved east, where he found he stood out on the football field at Newton North High in Newton, Mass.

His grades were another story.

"You're here for two reasons. Better grades and athletics," said Clayborne, squinting in the sunlight, just off the football field. "The structure is good. You first get here and you're nervous. You know you're around other good athletes and it's a little intimidating.

"But once you're here you see what you can be."

Clayborne believes he can play Division I football for a major conference university. He knows that means getting his grades up in the classroom, and says the structure of the program helps.

Days are mapped out to the minute, from sunrise to 9 p.m. with class, study halls and practices.

Free time is kept to a minimum. It is designed to mimic the rigors of balancing college academics with athletics.

"The structure is good and being around all boys helps," said Clayborne.

"It becomes kind of a brotherhood."

Bridgton's opponents in football are high level prep schools or junior varsity teams from colleges around the Northeast, including Columbia, Yale, Brown and Dartmouth.

In winter, Bridgton fields competitive hockey and basketball teams; and in spring there is lacrosse, baseball and tennis.

Headmaster Grady Vigneau touts the program's ability to choose the right students. A former college football player and coach, he was hired this summer. He says the right student for Bridgton is one who buys into the school's philosophy and agrees to a kind of partnership to do his part to succeed.

"Nineteen-year-old boys are going to make mistakes," said Vigneau. "It's not all a bowl of cherries. This isn't la-la land. We lose kids and that's painful. But we make a commitment to every young man that comes here. The satisfaction comes when that partnership is formed."

Most of the school's athletes are referred to Bridgton Academy by their high school coaches. Some are encouraged to attend by an interested college...