Baltimore City adds two varsity programs; three more to come
You may need a score card to keep track of the new teams arriving on Baltimore City’s fields and courts in the next few years.
Five new varsity programs are coming, including two this year from schools that were located within Walbrook. But, in a sad note for city athletics fans, there is no Walbrook High School anymore.
Anywhere you see Walbrook on a schedule, it is now the Institute of Business and Entrepreneurship (IBE). IBE and the Maritime Academy were both part of Walbrook last year, but now they are individual schools with their own athletics programs. Both will compete on the varsity level right away.
Maritime is located in the old Samuel Banks High School building while IBE is in the former Lemmel Middle School building, about a mile from Walbrook, which is now undergoing renovation.
Walbrook’s athletic director Yolanda Jackson takes over as AD at IBE, which retained the Warriors mascot and the scarlet and gray school colors. While IBE retains some of the Walbrook population, Jackson said, many student-athletes have transferred to other schools. She noted two veteran football players, linemen Nathaniel Lay and Charles Boyd, who have remained with IBE.
The new schools are much smaller than Walbrook, which was a huge Class 4A school. IBE is in Class 2A. The Maritime Anchors, largely comprised of former Banks student-athletes, are in Class 1A.
The other three schools, which have been around for at least a year with some level of junior varsity or freshman participation, will field JV programs this year and will move to varsity next year or the year after. They are Friendship Academy of Science and Technology, Academy for College and Career Exploration and Masonville Cove Community Academy.





