Over the past 15 years there has been an increase in the number of secondary schools in New Zealand developing sports academies, yet there has not been a corresponding increase in the critical or empirical research investigating this phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to describe the micro-politics associated with the inception and development of one secondary school sport academy (SSSA) and thereby contribute to the small body of empirical research that focuses on sports academies in New Zealand. Three prominent individuals involved in the inception and development of the SSSA were interviewed. The interview transcripts as well as texts associated with the school's sports programmes were inductively and deductively analysed. The Multiple Streams Model and Mintron and Norman's 'policy entrepreneur' framework were used as sensitising lenses to understand and highlight how key individuals within the school were able to influence the change process and subsequently develop an SSSA. We contend that the individuals did this by being social engineers, policy entrepreneurs, having intellectual property as well as being pragmatic.