Pike Road High School Gym Renovations

PIKE ROAD -- After 17 games on the road, the Pike Road basketball teams are finally getting to play a game at home.

The Patriots have practiced and played in the elementary school gym this season while their basketball gym – the old Georgia Washington Junior High gym – has undergone an extensive, five-month overhaul. The “new” Pike Road High gym will make its debut tonight as the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams play host to Bullock County High in a 3A Area 5 matchup.

“I like it, it’s more colorful,” said the Patriots’ leading scorer, Shaun Holmes. “I think the students will like it, too. It looks like a Patriots court. Last year, we had wooden bleachers. This year, it’s a better environment, the bleachers are bigger.”

Gone are the old pull-out wooden bleachers, replaced with a state-of-the-art hard plastic and aluminum motorized set of bleachers that seat a little more than 600 fans. The walls have been repainted, the floor sanded and painted with new logos, new scoreboards installed and new padding placed behind the baseline. New LED lighting replaces the old lighting system and HVAC ducts run the length of both walls above the bleachers to keep fans comfortable.   

“I think you had to invest the money,” Pike Road coach Robb McGaughey said. “Could you have played in that gym? Yes, it was playable. We obviously played in it last year and it was nice. But this shows a level of commitment that the town and the school is putting forth that we want a program of high standards.

“Now, is it going to be the biggest in the state? Obviously, no, but it’s going to be one of the nicest. I feel like it is. Now, we’ve got heating and air conditioning, new scoreboards, the floor completely refinished, new bleachers. When you walk in, it is a pretty looking gym.”

Work started in September with the removal of the wooden bleachers and the installation of the new scoreboards. A final urethane finish on the court was applied earlier in the week and the teams were allowed to practice for the first time on Thursday afternoon. While workers sealed up the old exterior windows on the gym and started putting down tile in the exterior concession area, the basketball teams had to share practice time with the volleyball team at the elementary school. 

“Here’s where the difficulty was,” McGaughey said. “We had seven teams trying to practice in one gym. So there wasn’t a lot of flexibility in scheduling (practice). Some nights, we had to start practice at 7 p.m., switching to where everyone could do it. This definitely gives us more options.”

The gym will make its debut tonight, but it’s far from complete. The stage on the west side of the court was ignored in the initial renovation and there are dozens of ideas on how to utilize the area. Tonight, the school band will use the area.

The locker rooms need to be refurbished as well, a project that will be undertaken during the offseason. 

Both boys’ and girls’ teams hope to turn the renovated gym into a homecourt advantage that can bring the Patriots an area title this season.

“It makes us more focused,” Holmes said. “We’ve got a new court, people are coming out to see us play in a new environment. It’s our home court so we want to play hard and win every game we play on it.”