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Field House facelift
Renovations complete at Sikeston's home gym
SIKESTON -- One of the oldest sporting venues in southeast Missouri has gotten a makeover.
Renovations to the Sikeston Field House recently completed after three cosmetic improvements began in late May. A new gym floor, overhead lights and personalized banners now hang and lay inside the 44-year old home of the Sikeston Bulldogs.
"It took a little bit longer than what we thought, but it came out really, really nice," Sikeston athletic director Andy McGill said. "Actually, it looks better than what we originally thought it would."
Bolton Industries, based out of St. Louis, was awarded the contract after the Sikeston school district submitted bids last year. Bids were given back to the district in March and the school board accepted and approved Bolton's shortly after.
Directly following the 2013 graduation ceremonies, Sikeston's maintenance staff got right to work ripping up the old floor. Bolton began their work in June.
"We wanted to make sure that if we're going to have the big crowds like we have, we wanted to give them the best venue possible," said McGill.
Although the facelift the Field House received is a boost cosmetically, the reasoning behind the upgrade wasn't for beautification purposes.
"It was a safety issue," McGill said. "We had nails coming up and we wanted to make sure we were able to play without any injuries. We had dead spots and other issues within the old floor as well."
The centerpiece of the gym floor is now a red Bulldog head, instead of the full body Bulldog that was there prior. The previous Bulldog will find a new home shortly which will be inside the Field House lobby.
The floor also has two new decals promoting Sikeston's 2011 undefeated state championship basketball team who had a perfect record of 30-0 en rout to the basketball program's first-ever state title.
The last time the Field House gym floor was renovated was in 1992. McGill, a Sikeston high school graduate, was a sophomore at the time. The Field House first opened in January of 1969.
Along with a new gym floor, which is primarily used for Sikeston's basketball, volleyball and wrestling sport programs, among others, new overhead lighting was installed as well as 16 banners representing the past accomplishments of all their sports programs.
The banners, which promote conference championships, district championships, playoff and state championship appearances as well as state titles, hang alongside the press box on the south entrance of the floor above the reserved seating section.
The new banners take the place of Sikeston's old metal ones that hung behind the press box above the main entrance as well.
"It's no different than what we had before, but now, it's out there and they're a little bit more modern," McGill said about the banners. "Since we now have a better looking floor, we wanted to update that as well. I think the public will like that and they'll be able to see our accomplishments."
Continuing the theme of Sikeston's complete modernization, the athletic program is reaching into the world of social media. Twitter accounts for all sports programs are being issued and released, which began two weeks ago with a main Sikeston athletics account. Now, fans, parents and athletes can received direct information from their coaches through Twitter.
"We'll be able to get information out directly to our community, parents and student-athletes a lot quicker than a phone call or a text," McGill said. "This will only improve our communication, promote our student-athletes and our programs.
"It's a different world now," added McGill. "Every kid, it seems like, has a Twitter account. We need to reach out to our kids and promote our kids."
The athletic program also accepted the sponsorship of Under Armour sporting apparel. McGill said that starting this school year, jerseys and apparel bought by the Sikeston school district will be from Under Armour.
"We also have discounts for parents and our students through our Under Armour sponsorship," McGill said."With that, there will be a little bit of kick-back that will go to our athletic program. It's another way that our program can improve with extra money."
Although the Sikeston athletic program has took a big step in modernizing its facilities and its social network, don't expect the improvements to stop any time soon. McGill said more are coming, but in due time.
"We're going to have more improvements over time," he said. "We want to improve and we've got some other things in mind. But, at this time, there's nothing official."