GASTON — As KIPP Pride High School has matured and grown, its sports efforts often took a back seat to the namesake motto “Knowledge is Power” program.

Advertisement

The gymnasium had a tile floor that served its multi-use purpose but lacked the “feel” of being in a real basketball gymnasium. Saturday, that all changed.

Students, teachers, parents and volunteers from the community installed a hardwood gym floor at the school. The floor has a rich history — it once graced U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati.

Players from the University of Cincinnati, Miami, Xavier, the University of Illinois and even the Ball4Real Streetball World Tour are among just a few who’ve played on this floor. Even the NBA’s Indiana Pacers pounded this hardwood.

Some might wonder how you go about buying a used gymnasium floor or even how you could take up a floor from one location, move it 400 miles and re-install it. It is not only possible, but it happens all the time said KIPP Pride’s Athletic Director Robert McNair. “All of the major arenas use a flooring system that can be easily removed for other events and most are replaced on a regular basis.”

McNair was searching for just the right floor for longer than a year when he found this one. McNair found the floor at a company named Praters Incorporated in Chattanooga, Tenn. Praters installs and maintains some of the best floors in the eastern United States, not only basketball courts, but also some of the best hardwood flooring in homes and businesses.

Their work is so well known that when the University of Florida basketball team won the NCAA National Championship in 2006, the school purchased the Final Four floor on which they won and had Praters takes it up and refinishes it as the University’s new home court flooring.  When the U.S. Bank Arena decided it was time for a new floor, they also called Praters and McNair was in the right place at the right time to claim the arena’s old floor. “They told me this floor was available and gave us a really good deal, so we said to go ahead,” McNair said.

Once Praters got the go ahead, they began resurfacing the individual panels of flooring and designing the school logo for KIPP, which features a large lion’s paw print at center court, done up in the school’s Carolina Blue color scheme.

On Saturday, the students began unloading the large finished panels and carrying them into the gym. The floor was laid out with the help of Mike Trotter from Praters, who made sure everything was in its proper place as the paneling process began. Once one side was in place, the panels were bolted together. The basketball court lined up perfectly with the old tile flooring lines as the panels were laid down.

A tapered, hard rubber edge will be placed around the floor as the final step to ease the transition from the new floor to the old flooring.

The basket ball goals will now have to be raised a little over two inches because the new floor was laid right over the old tile floor. Now the young KIPP Pride Lions will also have to adjust to playing on a real floor and McNair again laughed, “That will also be easy.”