Canyon State Academy

Arizona Boys Ranch

The school started as the Arizona Boys Ranch in 1948 and later grew to include eight facilities in Oracle, Queen Creek, and elsewhere.^[2] The original mascot in the ABR era was the Spartans, and colors were green and white.^[3] This was a nod to Frank Kush, a Michigan State University alumnus, who helped start the football program in 1994.

Almost immediately after its foundation, ABR football was a successful program. From 1995 to 1997, it had three nearly undefeated seasons — it only lost to one team, Blue Ridge High School from Pinetop-Lakeside, but it faced the Yellow Jackets three years in a row in the 3A title game and lost. From 1995 to early September 1998, no school would beat ABR except for Blue Ridge; this streak was broken when another emerging football power, Chandler's Hamilton High School, beat the Spartans on their own turf.^[4] It was the first time ever that the visiting school won in a game played at the Boys Ranch.

On March 2, 1998, Nicholaus Contreraz died at the Boys Ranch due to the abusive conditions at Arizona Boys Ranch.^[5] On August 27, 1998, the Boys Ranch lost its operating license. It was later reinstated (by October 7),^[6] but the effects echoed. Once an AIA 3A school whose enrollment had reached 458 in 1998,^[7] it had 45 after California pulled the students it fed to ABR out, making it one of Arizona's smallest high schools. Its Oracle facility had been closed, centering all activity on the Queen Creek location.

Canyon State Academy

In March 2000, the name of the school was changed to Canyon State Academy, ushering in a decade in which new owners Rite of Passage began to standardize the naming and colors of the school to match some of their other high school programs and to distance itself from the ABR era. Athletics reimaging climaxed with the changeover of colors and mascot from the ABR-era Spartans to maroon and gray and the Rams in 2005.^[8]