As most Bear River students know, we have recently had our gym floor redone. This “remodel” has been long awaited, and the last time the gym was redone was in 2016.
People are very excited but the most excited of them might be the PE teachers, such as Athletic Director Jeff Bickmore.
Bickmore is thrilled with the new gym floor.
“I’m very excited about it,” he said. “You know when you are planning something like that you never know exactly how it’s going to turn out, so it’s such a big thing we wanna make sure it was exactly what we wanted and everyone I’ve talked to who was a part of the planning, w’ve all been really pleased on how it turned out.”
The condition of the old floor was really bad and outdated. Most people who play indoor sports value the new floor because it makes it easier to perform..
Khloe August, a freshman on the JV girls volleyball team, is a big fan of the remodel,
“I think it’s fire,” August said. “But it’s not very slippery and I wish it was a little more slippery, but it's also nice for basketball to not have a slippery floor.”
The floor has gone from a darker more warm-toned color to a very light color. The floor design has also changed a lot.
“I love this one way more than the old one, this is way better,” Bickmore says. “There was something about the old one that, for years, we have wanted to change. ”
August does miss part of the old floor, though.
“No. I honestly like the old design more because of the Nike symbol,” August said. “I always felt rich when I was playing on the floor.”
Students who take PE or have open gym flexes weren’t able to play in the new gym at the beginning of the year. The reason is because of the bleachers, which need to be serviced.
With many of our indoor sports, lots of crowds, and crowds need bleachers.
Sliding the bleacher in and out every day would mess up the floors.
“We will have PE in the big gym eventually,” he said in October. “One of the big reasons why we don’t is because of the bleachers.
“Aa lot of the time we are keeping the bleachers out because of volleyball. We don’t want them going in and out right now because we need to get them serviced. After all, going in and out could do some damage to the floor, so we are waiting until all the wheels get redone and fixed up so that we don’t have any issues with it rolling in and out.
“As far as flex time, we probably will plan on not using it for flex time just because it is too hard to control what kids are wearing, like with cowboy boots and different things like that.”