By: Logan Becker
Winter sports are in full swing, and the first games are being played by our teams this season. And since practices are usually every day, our gyms get a lot of use. It’s because of this that our gyms need to be in top condition.
Just recently, one of our students suffered an injury during basketball practice that bought him a trip to the emergency room. I looked on while my teammate lay on the floor writhing in pain, I could only help but wonder if an incident like this could’ve been prevented by properly cleaning the courts, which were caked in a layer of dust.
A myriad of gym classes are held at DDHS, which means a sizable chunk of the student population spends time in both of our gyms. Almost all of those students wear the same shoes they wear outside and around the school in the gym for class. And because of that, detritus from everywhere everyone’s been gets tracked into the gym. As you can imagine, that makes the floors quite slippery.
Some of you may be asking yourselves, “Now why on Earth wouldn’t you just mop the floor?” There’s a bit of a problem with that. You see, nobody really mops the floors on a day-to-day basis – not even the janitors. And even if they did, truth be told: it wouldn’t make much of a difference. There’s already enough dust layered into the floors, so much so that sweeping has essentially become useless at this point.
There are two solutions to this issue. The first (and more radical) option is to move gym classes out of the gym completely. The second is to clean the floors more often, and keep them clean. I believe this is the better option.
To achieve a cleaner, more usable gym, we have to do two things:
First, after every class and before every sports event, the gym floors are mopped. If this can’t be done, at least mop the floors before and after games.
Second, enforce students to use proper gym shoes different from their regular shoes. Students may not have an extra pair of shoes, so the school should have some on hand to provide to students who don’t have any.
If we can make our gyms as close as they can be to dust free, our gyms will look nicer, and be safer for our athletes to compete and play to the best of their abilities.
thecometeer