Space need is real, but is it enough to convince voters?
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Just to practice, the members of the Burlington High School wrestling team have to worry about more than space.
Each day during the five-month wrestling season, the BHS wrestlers set up and tear down their wrestling mats, attaching them together then cleaning them each day at the start of practice and then rolling them up after.
“What we’ve figured out is that it adds about 30 minutes to practice,” said BHS wrestling coach Jade Gribble.
It is one of two sports in need of either dedicated or updated spaces – and indicative of the needs throughout the district for athletic space.
The issue will be the second of three questions on the April 4 ballot as referendums for voters in the Burlington Area School District – the first being a new middle school and maintenance throughout the district and the third being a new performing arts center.
The cost for the new gym space is $11.7 million, borrowed over 20 years, with tax increases varying from $39 to $78 for homes valued between $100,000 and $200,000.
In addition to providing a three-station auxiliary gym, locker rooms, weight room, training room and coaches’ offices, there will be dedicated space for wrestling and for gymnastics.
Wrestling
The Burlington High School wrestling program had dedicated space until it moved to the new high school in 2000.
Since then, it has been the daily grind of setting up and tearing down. Ideally, Gribble said, the mats should be washed more than once, and there needs to be more space with added padding for safety.
Because the set-up is right next to the storage area, people are literally coming and going for the entire practice.
Add in errant basketballs, people coming in and actually trying to talk to his athletes – Gribble says this does happen – and safety concerns, and the situation is far from ideal.
The safety concerns go beyond just making sure the mats stay clean – a health issue that is a constant battle in wrestling. This year, Gribble had a pair of wrestlers lost for the season because they went off the mats while wrestling in practice and hit their heads on the gym floor.
“A lot of people would say, ‘Oh, just get closer in the middle,’” Gribble said. “Then you have people falling over each other.”
A separate practice facility, he said, would allow for full mat coverage both on the floors and the walls.
“That’s probably the key issue, the safety,” Gribble said.
Setting up for competition is more detailed. Depending on whether it is a dual meet or a tournament, the team will set up one or more mats.
The more mats, the more people Gribble, his team and his staff need to set up.
Gymnastics
The BBW Gymnastics team – a cooperative program that includes Burlington, Lake Geneva, Union Grove, Wilmot and Catholic Central – has a dedicated space, but it’s far from ideal.
The gymnastics program works out of the original gymnasium built in the 1920s at what was then BHS and is currently Karcher Middle School. Problems include lack of ADA accessibility, limited spectator space – and the issue of using essentially every inch of space for equipment.
For example, those competing on vault – one of four apparatus in the sport – start their run out of an old locker room hallway. The runway butts up right against the handicapped access ramp to the gym.
The floor exercise takes up the majority of the floor space, but with little room if a gymnast should fall out of bounds. The balance beam and uneven bars are set up side by side, with perhaps one to two feet between them for competitions.
Mats surround the equipment and are on the walls surrounding the floor exercise, but there is little room between the equipment for athletes to sit together.
Spectator space is limited to about 50 seats in a small gallery, and perhaps 5 to 10 seats on the gym floor. Those spectators are within a few feet of the competing gymnasts.
“The space is not ideal,” said BASD Superintendent Peter Smet.
Trying to balance needs
While the spaces for those two sports need addressing, there are other issues. The BHS gym space is tied up from about 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. each day between school and community sports activities. Other district gymnasiums are similar booked.
Those include, but aren’t limited to, the feeder programs for BHS teams like the Junior Demons and Lady Demons basketball teams, Junior Demon baseball, the Burlington Youth Soccer Club, Burlington Blast and Burlington Elite Volleyball.
Those youth programs are a future of the sport that Gribble wants to see promoted.
With wrestling in particular, Gribble said, if the team didn’t need to roll up and put away mats after practice, there would be more time for intangibles – taking extra time with coaches, youth wrestlers coming in and the like.
“Not only do our youth kids have someone to look up to, a role model, (but a high school athlete) realizes he’s a role model,” Gribble said.
See this week’s Burlington Standard Press for more about the gym space referendum, which is the first in a series of three weekly packages profiling the school district referendum questions voters will face on April 4.
-
-
-
-
-