By Marshall Tempest
Reporter
Apopka High School’s head softball coach, Mike MacWithey, designated the Apopka softball club as the recipient of a service award’s $250 charitable donation.
MacWithey was awarded the Foliage Sertoma Club of Apopka’s 2025 Service to Mankind Award on April 29. The club donates to a cause chosen by the recipient as part of the award.
MacWithey said the donation would be used to construct a wall of fame, called the Apopka High School Rose Garden. The name reflects MacWithey’s and the program’s mission and mentality—that all of his players are budding roses that need to be nurtured so they can bloom.
“The plan is to create a wall of fame on the north wall of the home dugout that faces the bleachers,” MacWithey said. “In keeping with the ‘rose’ message and mission statement, our plan is to create an AHS Softball Rose Garden — not with actual rose plants but with the names of athletes from the program who have played at the next level. We will list their name, year of graduation and college.”
MacWithey said he hopes the garden will be finished before the start of the 2026 spring season. He said the rose concept for the program began as a tribute to his mother, Carolyn MacWithey. MacWithey’s mother worked the softball team’s concession stand for many years and was a former president of the Apopka Garden Club.
“We are helping kids that come in as budding roses and try to prepare them to blossom,” MacWithey said. “When they blossom and they go on to play at the next level, we’re putting their rose on the wall.”
When the Sertoma Club of Apopka granted him the $250 check, the club asked its members if they would be interested in matching it. Without question, members’ hands flew up at the chance, and MacWithey was gifted with another $250 to bring his total to $500.
MacWithey said he wants to recognize the paths of Apopka softball “roses” to show present and future players what is possible. He said the team would love the rose garden and hoped it would give them that extra bit of confidence in themselves and their journey on and off the field.
MacWithey was recognized for the time and effort he has put into the lives of Apopka youth on the field as a coach and in the classroom as an engineering teacher at the high school. He was chosen as the winner of Sertoma’s Service to Mankind over eight other candidates.
MacWithey has been a member of the Apopka community for a long time and has worked at Apopka High School since 1983, when he started as an assistant coach of the Apopka softball team. In 1995, he became the head coach, and not long after, he became an engineering teacher at the high school.
Since becoming the head coach of the Apopka softball team, MacWithey has amassed an 807-327 record as of May 1. He has also mentored many softball players and engineering students to find a path to higher education.
MacWithey asked the community to contact him if they know of any former Apopka High School softball players who went on to play at the collegiate level so those players can be added to the garden.
