North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: Something Permanent for a Wolfpack Gem
8/22/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Aug. 22, 2005
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH - For the first time in its 55-year history, Reynolds Coliseum has a permanent wooden floor to play on.
Since opening in 1949, the multi-use gymnasium has used portable wooden floor for basketball, volleyball and wrestling matches. That also made it easier to convert the building for other uses, such as ice skating, concerts, graduation ceremonies and a Presidential visit every now and then.
But since Reynolds is primarily used for Wolfpack athletics ever since the men's basketball team moved to the RBC Center in 1999, the athletics department opted to put down a wall-to-wall wooden floor as part of on-going renovations to the grand limestone-and-brick fortress.
The arena will now be divided into three parts:
• The north side, for volleyball and wrestling matches. This portion of the gym will be surrounded on three sides by upper deck seating, creating a more intimate and louder environment for those sports. "The closeness of the fans should be advantageous for volleyball," said Wolfpack coach Mary Byrne.
• The center section, the traditional placement for the full-sized basketball court, with a large Struttin' Wolf logo at center court.
• The south side, where a practice court is placed perpendicular to the full-sized court. This can be cordoned off with a divider, which will allow basketball and volleyball to have off-season individual workouts, something that was not possible when the teams shared use of Reynolds before. Each team that wanted to use the gym had to reserve space for certain periods of time.
"We decided to finally put down a permanent floor as part of the renovations that are on-going at Reynolds Coliseum," said Barry Joyce, NC State's Assistant Athletics Director for Indoor Facilities. "We think it will create a more intimate atmosphere for volleyball and wrestling and give us an upgraded floor for basketball."
Also added to the project will be a new set of moveable bleachers for the north and south end zone, which can be removed more easily than the old set. The new bleachers also have a more traditional rise-and-run, meaning they are a little steeper than the gradually sloping stands that were a hallmark of Reynolds' extra-deep end zones. Those end zones were stretched during the original structure by legendary men's coach Everett Case so that the school's new arena would be larger than Duke's basketball arena.
It made for an odd configuration, but it also gave Reynolds the capacity to become one of the first big basketball arenas in the South. As the home of the Dixie Classic, the first 15 ACC men's basketball tournaments and several NCAA regional contests, Reynolds hosted more basketball games than any other venue in the country.
Hall of Fame coach Kay Yow continues Reynolds' legacy for excellence, with her women's basketball team being Reynolds' primary tenant since 1999.
The new flooring - made from more than 2,000 Northern hard maple trees grown in upper Michigan, Wisconsin and Canada - was installed by Royalwood Associates, Inc., of Raleigh, which specializes in installing gymnasium floors for K-12 schools in the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland and Georgia.
"We are very proud to be the ones to put this in," said Todd Eidson, a Royalwood Associates vice president. "The majority of our work is installing floors in school gymnasiums. Something this big - about three times larger than a normal gymnasium floor - is an extremely rare opportunity."
The new floor, which covers 29,400 square feet, was delivered one week before the June 13 fire that destroyed two ROTC classrooms on the east side of the building. The wood flooring was undamaged in that fire, and Royalwood crews have been working seven days a week since Reynolds was reopened in late June to install the floor.
The most recent portable wooden floor was sold for $52,000 through a state surplus auction.
Monday, local artist Ron Baker of Fuquay-Varina painted the Struttin' Wolf logo at center court of the basketball arena and on the basketball practice floor.
Here's a brief history of the floor at Reynolds Coliseum, from Chennelle Miller, associate media relations director.
1949: Reynolds Coliseum opens its doors to the first men's basketball game on Dec. 2. Not long after the building was dedicated, the portable wooden floor began to warp and huge chunks of insulation fell from the floors, caused by excess humidity from the ice rink underneath the basketball-playing surface. The ice rink, with its 12 miles of pipes in the arena floor and ice-making equipment, was soon abandoned.
1973: A "new" resilient playing surface made of synthetic urethane and called ProTurf was installed. It was said to look particularly impressive on television.
1990: Synthetic floor was replaced with the original wooden floor, which new basketball coach Les Robinson dug out of the Reynolds' Coliseum basement. The old wood floor was then refinished.
1999: The "old" wooden floor was replaced with the floor that existed through last season. The old floor was cut up and sold as souvenirs, with autographed photos of Yow, David Thompson and Herb Sendek. When the men's team moved to the RBC Center in the 1999-2000 season, the new wood floor was painted with the Struttin' Wolf, which replaced the Block S at center court. The women's basketball logo was also painted on the new floor.
2005: A new 29,400 sq. foot maple floor is installed that covers the entire arena.
You may reach Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
Special Thanks to Dr. Ed Funkhouser for the photo.
