Had this Friday night. Varsity Boys. I walk into the "gym" only to find out that this school plays their games in the church, where congregation is held! When I first walk in, I am about 15' from the near sideline at the division line. As I look around I notice that the scorers table and clock are up on the stage, where services are preformed. The benches are on the floor, right in front of the stage. The students section is positioned on the stage, behind the home bench. The "stands" consist of 4 rows of folding chairs going right up to the side of the court (3' away) The ceiling has to be the minimum of 25' high, the court is the shortest court I have seen since my days of boys club ball. In the 4 corners, the walls come to within 3 inches of the court. This runs about a foot parallel to to court before it turns away and in now about 3' away from the court. There is NO restraining line. No coaches boxes marked. They have the X marked with tape. We let the coaches use the area in front of their benches as the "box" because I think in varsity, coaches should be allowed to stand. The best part of the entire "gym" was that all the way around the court, except for under the lane extended OOB, there was carpet that came within an inch of the OOB lines.
To top things off, we had the teachers lounge available to change in, and we had to use the public bathroom, which had a shower available if we wanted to use it. We did not.
I know that this court doesn't fit the NFHS standards for a legal court, but what would you do in this situation? Would you say that the game can't be played for safety reasons? This court has been around for a while (partner said he was there 3 years ago) We were the 4th game of the day, so the school could ask, why was it legal for games 1-3, but not game 4? I don't know if the school has some sort of exemption from the state, but I honestly don't see how they can play their games here.
We did play the game, between 2 top 10 teams in their class in the state, and I have never felt more claustrophobic on a basketball court before. I plan on sending an email to our association commissioner asking about the legality of the court, but I am certain he is already aware of it because he has been the commissioner for over 30 years.
Oh yeah, and I am there again tomorrow
