DAPHNE, Ala. — The United States Sports Academy’s founding president, Thomas Rosandich, comes from a family of Marines. “I was a Marine, my sons are Marines and my brothers are Marines,” he said.

That’s why, Rosandich said, it’s an honor for the academy to be part of building a Marine Corps League detachment in Baldwin County.

The league is a federally chartered veterans organization connected to the United States Marine Corps, and local Marines can join the group to stay an active part of the military organization and come together with other local Marines.

“We will call on Marines from Daphne, Spanish Fort, Robertsdale, Fairhope, Loxley and Bay Minette” who will join the local detachment, Rosandich said. “To be a member of the Marine Corps league, you have to be a member of the Marine currently or a past Marine. But there are many other categories … (You can) be an associate and help do some things that the detachment does. Sometimes those are the people that really make these groups click and come together.”

Rosandich said there is a detachment in Mobile that many Marines from Baldwin County are part of, but a local detachment could bring local Marines to the new group.

The academy’s role in the detachment is to provide a location for the group to meet on a monthly basis.

“All we’re doing is providing a place for this league to meet and the reason we’re doing that is because of the kinds of things (the league) does,” Rosandich said.

The Mobile-based detachment brings veterans from a veterans home in Biloxi to the Senior Bowl and helps out with Toys for Tots — just two of many activities that league takes part in, he said.

The academy also is known for its Toys for Tots efforts.

“We’ve been collecting (for) Toys for Tots, a very active Marine Corps program for around 20 years,” Rosandich said about Daphne’s campus.

The first event the new detachment takes part in is associated with the academy as well. The Marines will donate a collection of artist Harry Weber’s “A Warrior’s Sketchbook” to the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park’s Vietnam exhibit. The sketches currently are on display at the academy.

The first organizational meeting will take place March 1 at 6:30 p.m. on the academy’s campus, and all local Marines and navy corpsmen who served with Marines are invited to attend and encouraged to join.

“There’s a fee of $30 for the year and it covers all the activities of the program,” Rosandich said, noting the detachment has “a good number” so far in membership.

There are 11 other detachments throughout the state of Alabama, the academy stated.

Rosandich said Spanish Fort resident John Walker would be the acting commandant of the local group until the detachment gets a little more organized.

For more about the Daphne-based detachment, contact the academy at 626-3303.

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