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Jack Atkinson
Around the county there are other old gyms: Oak Park, Adrian (now renovated with carpet for a physical education center), and the gym at E.C.I. Around the area I still spot places where we played basketball. You almost touch the Portal gym as you drive down highway 80. Actually basketball is played in many places without a gymnasium. In Garfield there was an old dirt court which worked just fine. Summertown had a dirt court as well. I remember playing a game there where my Uncle Bobby Atkinson was the referee. I guess he could be impartial with a nephew and a brother-in-law, Ronnie Pope on the court. The spectator in the gym gets to be close to the action (all too often it spills over into the first few rows when a player desperately tries to save a ball). The sound is thunderous. The stomping of feet and the sound reverberating from the hard wood floor makes for a special feeling. The smells of sweat and popcorn fill the air. All other sounds are punctuated by the horn of the score board. Basketball is in full swing. For me watching a high school basketball game is pure joy. Give me a ticket to see the Falcons and I would gladly swap it for a ticket to see the E.C.I. boys play. There is a good chance the E.C.I. teams will end the season in a brand new gymnasium. This is a long expected piece of SPLOST dollars and an up to date facility the modern school really needs. It was designed by Buckley and Associates and constructed by Pope Construction. Lines still have to be painted and the dozens of little things to finish up a big project in the range of two million dollars. It is beautiful and multipurpose. Not only basketball will be played there but also girl's volleyball. It will be a place where competition cheerleading will practice. It will seat about 1,000. As much as I look forward to this new gym, my thoughts go back to what will soon be "the old gym." I am not sure when it was constructed but sometime in the early to mid 1950's making it over half a century old. I am assured that it will be well maintained and used. My first memory of this gym was sitting on the bleachers watching my sister play. She and her team mates (among them Celeste Overstreet and Mary Ann Gignalet and the Johnson and Sikes girls of Garfield, and Ann Coward Farrar) won many games on that court. My sister had a great hook shot which I tried to imitate when I got on the court. Only white soled Converse tennis shoes were allowed on the beautifully finished hardwood floor. Mr. Jenkins was the long time girl's basketball coach. What is more, at this time the girls had to play only half court, something I thought I would die for after having run up and down the court so very many times. Coach Joe Harvey was the boy's basketball coach. He was beloved by all. His main duty was as a math teacher, but his passion was baseball and perhaps taking around our boy's B team. His bald head was just a beacon to us for when he was angry or excited it turned bright red! He spent his entire teaching career at E.C.I. and returned to his home in Monticello, Georgia where he died within a couple of years of his retirement. He was a fixture in Twin City for decades and he could always be spotted at Baxter's or Anderson's station. Coach, I forgive you for ending our practices the way you did. We had to stay until we had rung 10 foul shots in a row! The gym was also the place of our high school assemblies, various beauty pageants, junior-senior proms and graduation. One-act plays were performed on the stage. But nothing was quite as exciting as hearing that horn call the game to order, the toss of the ball at center court to see who would grab it first. The game is on and some games were so exciting we had double overtimes. I hope to see you at the first game in the new gym, but don't get my seat.--Jack Atkinson is our regular guest columnist and a resident of Garfield.
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