Jun. 20—Clements High School was approved to enter into a contract for resurfacing the gym floor at the June 13 Limestone County School Board meeting.
"You know the old adage 'you build it, they will come' and when you've got nice facilities it encourages people to want to move there and want to come to school," Clements Principal Clint Legg said.
The contract is with Hughes Flooring Designs for $30,000 to be paid for by the girls and boys basketball teams, according to the board agenda request form.
"Most floors you know have the hardwood brown light brown tan whatever colored floor, we're going to do a little something different there," Legg said.
He said the gym was built back in 2000 and the floor hasn't been completely redone since then. The significant changes come at a cost to the programs that use the gym floor which means they are now fundraising for the teams' to be able to pay the bill.
"We need sponsors. We've got no problem putting their company logos on that floor to show it off," Legg said. "It's important that we fundraise and people support this idea."
Girls' basketball head coach Shane Childress said he believes they can do it, but it will be hard work. He said they've already reached out to over 100 businesses to try and get sponsorships and donations.
"We're going to have to really kind of tighten our belts and come up with ways to raise money," Childress said. "Some how, some way we're going to have to chip away at it."
Last season Clements got a new jumbotron that Legg said was paid for thanks to community support. and this season, Childress said he found a new sound system for the gym that's much cheaper than they had expected. The upgrades to the gym are important both men said, because they want the students to be afforded the same opportunities that other schools that might have more funding can provide.
"We're not an affluent community by no means but man, yeah we've got lots of support," he said. "But I don't think you ever have enough, I think there's still people out there that's hearing about us, especially with our girls basketball program."
Childress said the community support of the team and their efforts to support the new gym floor will get the recognition they pay for as the basketball team continues its effort to make it back to state next season.
"Seeing what we've got a chance to be for the next few years and what we've done for girls' basketball and how many people are going to be coming in and out of this gym, its a great advertisement to me to show that you support small communities, you're supporting the diversity that we have here at this school, bringing the community together, and you're supporting children that're trying to achieve something," Childress said.