After over three decades, the flooring of Gampel Pavilion at the University of Connecticut will be replaced.
Once the current basketball season at UConn is complete, the worn out flooring in Gampel will be updated with new maple flooring, said a UConn Today article.
Gampel Pavilion acts as a home court to the men’s and women’s basketball teams along with UConn volleyball, a UConn Today article said. Several other major events occur in Gampel throughout the school year.
“Gampel Pavilion has many uses beyond athletics, including [being] a commencement venue and a regular site for career fairs,” UConn Spokesperson Stephanie Reitz said.
The current flooring in Gampel dates back to 1990. Since then the men’s and women’s basketball teams have won 15 national championships combined, a UConn Today article said. In addition, UConn volleyball has won two Big East championships.
“With more than 30 years of use, it has been sanded and refinished so much that any further sanding could risk the chance that the nail heads holding down the subfloor could appear and pose a safety hazard,” and although the current Gampel floors have been kept up as much as possible in the last 33 years, it is time for a change, Reitz said.
The new flooring in Gampel will include the appropriate markings needed for each sport that will be played on it, UConn logos and all of the NCAA-compliant standards.
“The flooring will contain the same UConn branding it currently carries, including the Husky and the “UCONN” block logo,” Reitz said.
Athletes and students should be excited about the updates to Gampel, Reitz said. It will benefit the university as a whole, not only the student athletes.
“Gampel Pavilion is one of the great college basketball venues in the country with so many Husky greats having taken that court, creating countless signature moments during the last 33 years,” UConn Athletic Director David Benedict said in a UConn Today article.
With the importance of Gampel and UConn pride, athletics division officials are thinking of ways to make pieces of the current flooring available to the public, a UConn Today article said. Most likely this will be through a fundraising initiative. “Our athletics facilities maintenance crews have done commendable work to keep the flooring in good shape over the last 30-plus years, allowing the University to get its money’s worth and more out of the original investment,” Reitz said.
