As part of the Waukesha School District's capital improvement plan, the Waukesha West and North field houses were scheduled to get new floors down the road.
But with more and more athletes utilizing the synthetic rubber surfaces at the two schools recently getting injured - highlighted by a season-ending injury to one of West's star girls basketball players this past season - the need to replace them with wood floors became a pressing matter.
So instead of waiting, the Waukesha School Board decided now was the time to act and will have new wood floors installed at the schools this summer.
"We're in Year 2 of the plan and one was two years out the other was three years out," Waukesha School Board member Joseph Como said. "We're just moving them forward. We're reprioritizing some of the capital improvement projects."
Waukesha Superintendent Todd Gray said doing this is important to the student-athletes' health.
"The past two years knee and ankle injuries have been mounting at the schools and it doesn't mean you can't get injured on a wood floor but the kind of injuries that we saw at those two schools were ones where the foot was planted where the student-athlete turns and gets stuck in the rubber and that's not good for knees and ankles," Gray said. "The bottom line is those floors are bad, so it's time to fix them."
Floors all wood
The new floors will be built over the top of the old floors, which Como called "cost-effective."
Waukesha West Athletic Director Kyle Lemieux said the cost for both floors would not exceed $535,000. The cost of West's floor is just under $300,000, while North's floor is around $235,000 due to a smaller space.
And while there was discussion on how much to make wood vs. how much to keep rubber at the two schools, Lemieux said it was best for the safety of the students to have the entire floors be wood.
"The wood will provide more of a cushion and the athletes won't take such a pounding and will absorb much more because the old floors are like concrete," Lemieux said.
Gray added the 20-year expiration date on the rubber floors was up as both were installed in 1993. He said wood floors have no expiration date and can be updated by refurbishing.
Injury highlights need
That's not the case with synthetic floors.
"The only way to fix it (if it gets damaged) is to put a patch on it and that creates a safety issue," Gray said.
Lemieux said patching up the synthetic floors is really just a "Band-Aid."
This was brought to the forefront, he said, when West senior guard Michelle Farrow, who will play at Division 1 Western Illinois University in the fall, tore her anterior cruciate ligament in January in a home game.
"We've seen a trend and our trainer has more data on this, but Michelle's injury was the tipping point," Lemieux said. "She was having an excellent season and for her to go down, it ignited the conversation and brought attention to it and attracted the need for this."
Summer camps and activities will be moved from these high schools for the summer, but the floors will be finished in mid-August.
"We have an opportunity to err on the side of caution," School Board President Daniel Warren said. "We're going to replace it and get it taken care of sooner rather than later."
Field turf update
Just as student safety is the central concern in the flooring project, the Field of Many Dreams project that would implement field turf at the three Waukesha public high schools would also help in this area.
But unlike the field house project, the Field of Many Dreams, a project started in early 2011, isn't using district funds. Therefore, the timeline is less clear.
The $1.8 million project calls for each school to raise around $600,000. Lemieux said West, which was at $160,000 before the school year began, is up to $325,000.
"I've called this project the best kept secret in Waukesha, but we've still raised a substantial amount this year as we've had people rally around for a common cause," Lemieux said. "We're getting the message out to key contributors."
Lemieux said North and South are around the $175,000 mark.
It's Lemieux's hope enough money can be raised so West's field can be ready for the start of the 2014-15 school year.
"We're only in Year 3 and it's usually a five-year process," Lemieux said. "So we're excited about where we stand."