Lafayette High School updates gym floor with new design

Published 4:00 pm Wednesday, June 27, 2018

The additions and renovations are continuing at Lafayette.

The basketball and volleyball teams will be playing on a new track with the gym floor getting a complete makeover. The 10-year-old court is getting refurbished this summer and will have a brand new look to it when students return in August.

“It was getting a lot of buildup,” Lafayette athletic director Greg Lewis said. “The wood is still the same. They just came through and completely sanded off everything, and it’s needed it.”

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The gym floor is the latest in a complete overhaul of Commodore facilities. A new video board was installed at William L. Buford Stadium in May followed with the announcement of raising money for a new field house for the football team with the start of their ‘Dores Drive for Excellence’ campaign earlier this month.

“It’s just been neat to be able to do all these things,” Lewis said. “I reported to the (school) board the other day the things we’ve done and I looked back at them and I was like, ‘Dang, we’ve done a lot of things this past year.’ … I feel like each group’s had something that we’ve tried to help them out with this year.”

Lewis put some bids for the gym floor renovation and decided to go with Sports Floors Inc. out of Memphis. The company built the basketball court at The Pavilion at Ole Miss along with the floors at Mississippi State’s Humphrey Coliseum and the practice floors for the Memphis Grizzlies and University of Memphis Tigers basketball team.

“We called around checked on (Sports Floors’) work and everything I heard said they did unbelievable work,” Lewis said. “They were able to get it where we needed it to.”

Lafayette combined designs from Colorado State and Vanderbilt’s courts. The new design presents a lighter look to the floor with a shaded white border along the boundary all around the court. There is a two-tone look inside the three-point perimeter under the basket.

“It’s a lot brighter in here,” Lewis said. “Before they put anything on it (the court) was white. All the wood had been sanded off and I was thinking ‘man, I really like this look and I hope we don’t darken it down too much.’ By the time they finished it was even brighter in here.”

The court is the latest upgrade to the gym. New lighting and air conditioning systems were installed over the past two seasons.

The renovation should be complete by mid-July with the volleyball team the first to experience the new floor when they begin preseason practice begins on July 23.