Writer Spencer Gleason explores the benefits of bringing basketball back to Meramec
By: SPENCER GLEASON
Editor in Chief
When the gym floor at STLCC-Forest Park was damaged due to a pipe bursting in a men’s bathroom and some leakage from the roof, the home court for STLCC basketball became a revolving door.
After coming back from a stretch of away games, both the men’s and women’s basketball programs played a home game at STLCC-Florissant Valley on Jan. 11. Then the “home game” on Jan. 15 against Three Rivers Community College, was moved to Three Rivers. It finally became set in stone that a stretch of home games would be played at Meramec from Jan. 22 until Feb. 3—three games each for the men’s and women’s programs, until the men played two more games at Florissant Valley on Feb. 12 and Feb. 22.
Is your head dizzy, yet?
Why did the STLCC Athletic Department, directed by Meramec President Pam McIntyre, schlep her student-athletes from gym to gym for home games during three consecutive ones at Meramec? Why not move the basketball programs permanently to Meramec?
Before athletics was consolidated in July 2011, STLCC spent $78,309 on new lighting and $53,000 on new fans in the Meramec gym—only to move basketball to STLCC-Forest Park, where they spent an additional $131,550 on new lighting, $45,925 on the court floor—which is now ruined—and $40,464 on bleachers.
The Meramec campus is centrally located in the St. Louis area—has more of a community feel, which STLCC needs. It actually has a concession stand and the gym is on the first floor. The same cannot be said for Forest Park. There, the team sets up a plastic folding table on one end of the court for concessions and the gym is on the second floor.
STLCC can make this right if they move basketball back to Meramec. Maybe McIntyre will consider it. Maybe she will not.
But, if she attended more than one game over the course of the season, she would see how much Meramec came alive those three games.
