A basketball court with cracks in the pavement and an outdated color scheme has undergone a nearly $100,000 makeover.
Kurt Schooley, assistant director of Outdoor and Satellite Facilities, said the recently revamped 11th Avenue basketball courts were completed during a four-week span between mid-August and mid-September.
The plans for the court restorations included new backboards, basketball poles and rims. Schooley said these changes to the south outdoor courts needed to be made to match the design of the rest of campus.
“Eleventh Avenue was the only courts that we had left that had the old fan-shape style, fiberglass type backboard,” Schooley said. “And now we got the clear acrylic, basically unbreakable backboard with breakaway rims so that they match all of our other courts.”
Schooley said the renovation was a routine upgrade.
“It’s something we try to do with all of our outdoor courts, not to that extent, but we always try and maintain our asphalt surfaces of our courts every five to seven years and it was time for 11th Avenue basketball to receive a bit of an upgrade.”
Another major change was two inches of fresh asphalt layered over the existing basketball courts. Schooley explained that typical university protocol before repaving outdoor courts is to repair cracks in the asphalt. Due to extensive damages to the surface, Schooley said that thorough crack repair was not “economically feasible” and it made more sense to start over with a fresh coat.
Schooley said the project budget met expectations. The final cost for the renovations totaled $99,000.
“That (money) comes from a fund within rec sports called capital improvement funds,” Schooley said. “There is a certain pot of money that is set aside for facility improvements such as this each year that we do and this was one of the projects that we got in with this year.”
Some students seem pleased with the results of the upgrade.
“I think it’s a vast improvement over last year,” said Michael Morris, a fourth-year in psychology. “They (OSU) have so much money at their disposal that I’m glad that some of their resources are finally going to the student body, who cares about athletics and not just the students that are on the teams. So it’s nice that they are trying to improve the resources, like the hoops, the courts, all that stuff.”
Evan Lovejoy, a fourth-year in strategic communication, said he thinks these changes have been needed for a while.
“It was much needed,” Lovejoy said. “My freshman year, I walked by those (the basketball courts) every day and the backboards are trash, the nets were hanging down, the concrete was chipped. It was just poor quality basketball for the amount of people that used it.”
Lovejoy said the new courts are an upgrade from the old ones.
“I wish we had them (the new basketball courts) my freshman year,” Lovejoy said. “It just looks really nice and I think they really needed it.”
One final change to the 11th Avenue basketball courts could likely please the majority of OSU students.
“Rather than going back to the existing color scheme, which was kind of a green and a tan color, they are now kind of a scarlet and grey color scheme,” Schooley said.
The 11th Avenue basketball courts are open daily. Lighting is available from sunset to 2 a.m. throughout the year.