VAIDEN - Trashed goals and backboards, litter, a sickening odor from mildew, broken door handles, water leaks in a locker room, stuff strewn on the walls and floor of the lobby - all this and more confronted Claude Elam last week as he checked out the old Vaiden High School gymnasium.
Elam, whose appointment as athletic director and head football coach at J. Z. George School at North Carrollton awaits confirmation by the Carroll County School Board, has been told this gym is being pressed into service again this fall.
Closed since Vaiden and J. Z. George were consolidated in 1999, the Vaiden gym will take some work to whip into shape, Elam said, but it's doable. The playing surface looked stable. Fixing the water leak seemed most challenging, he said.
Vandals entered through a rear door on the south side. They knocked holes in an outer wall of a rear storage room.
The old VHS property is enclosed by a chain-link fence, an effort by the school board to prevent unauthorized entry.
Elam, a McCarley native, finished at Holmes Community College and Delta State University, beginning work with Carroll County Schools in 1977. He spent his first year at Vaiden, where he was assistant football coach and boys' track coach. He then went to North Carrollton, where he's been ever since.
Elam will be taking the place of former J.Z. George athletic director Farris Jenkins, who recently accepted the top athletic job at Carroll Academy.
At its meeting in April, the School Board voted to condemn the gym at J. Z. George. This created a crisis for the athletic program in terms of practice, home courts and dressing room space on the home campus. The board voted for closure on the recommendation of architects who had done the plans for enlarging and restoring J. Z. George to accommodate the enlarged enrollment created by consolidation.
Joey Henderson, a member of the architectural firm, advised the board to condemn the North Carrollton gym due to a cracking support beam. This, despite attempts to stabilize it in years past with metal bracing.
But some area taxpayers, such as Harmon Ed Stanford of Carrollton, want more solid evidence that the old gym is unsafe and that building a new gym is necessary.
"It'll be still standing after you and I are gone," Stanford said.
He wants a "disinterested" structural engineer to inspect the George gym to confirm or deny Henderson's findings, he said.
The school district is having its attorney, David Holly, draft a document releasing it of any responsibility should people entering the gym on this mission get hurt.
There also has been talk that some school officials believe asbestos exists in the George gym, creating a potential health hazard.
Last week, Rubye Miller, board member from District 5, said it would take an estimated $1 million to remove the asbestos from the gym.
Billy Williamson, the district's administrative assistant, reached late last week, at first said there is indeed asbestos. It is in the shingles on the outside of the gym, he reported, not dangerous unless the shingles are broken, sending fibers into the air.
Later, he recanted after checking district files. There is no reported asbestos at the George gym, which has been in place since shortly after World War II.
Elam said tornadic winds hit the gym several years ago, damaging part of the roof and some ceiling tiles. "Maybe these winds did something to that beam, too," Elam suggested.
Some efforts at updating the gym have occurred, including spending tens of thousands of dollars on sub-flooring and flooring, lowering the ceiling using those tiles, bringing down lights accordingly.
Miller said raw electrical wires also were hazardous. Elam said he knew of one such instance, in the area of the raised stage on the east end of the gym, which is boarded up.
"We surely could use that gym," Elam said. "We've got 80 junior high athletes who have no place to dress." It's not just basketball, but all other aspects of the district's athletic program, from track to football, that are in a crunch. There is a field house separate from the gym at North Carrollton, but that's for high school athletes. At that, there are no quarters for visiting teams.
Elam said he wouldn't be afraid to have basketball games in the old gym, but he also said students need a new gym. The way things stand now, the old VHS gym will be home court for the Jaguars, at least for one season.
The next board meeting is Monday at 3:30 p.m. at the office of the superintendent of education on Lexington Street, Carrollton.
There will be a public hearing at this time on the district's proposed budget for fiscal year 2001-2002. An ad valorem tax increase is included. The projected budget revenue is $6,908,478. Of this figure 21.16 percent is to be obtained through ad valorem taxes.
In order to achieve the financing, the district is proposing a 1.53 millage increase.
