MORROW, Ga. – For the fifth straight year, throughout the summer, the Clayton State Sports Information Office is counting down the Top-10 stories of the year following an impressive 2018-19 campaign.
Today, we release the No. 2 story of the season – Largest Renovation in Program History Impacts All Areas of Athletics. Make sure to check
www.ClaytonStateSports.com every Friday to catch the latest release.
Story No. 2: Largest Renovation in Program History Impacts All Areas of Athletics
In a move that benefits all of Clayton State Athletics, not just now but for decades down the road, the program underwent the largest single renovation in its history from the middle of April through mid-November.
Part of the
University System of Georgia (USG) "Academic Core", the scope of the project included the majority of buildings on campus but made an indelible impact on Athletics.
Among the areas that saw major changes were the lobby with the addition of a permanent concession stand, Athletic Training with a State-of-the-Art facility sponsored by OrthoAtlanta and locker rooms for each of Clayton State's teams. The work also resulted in the addition of two new classrooms and additional office space for staff.
Throughout the length of the project,
www.ClaytonStateSports.com chronicled it all by
release,
photo gallery and
video gallery. All of these are and will remain
available online to show just how far Laker Athletics has come in a short time.
That being the case, this countdown release is a bit different from the ones that we've done before. Instead of just telling you about some of the key moments of the renovation, we want to show you through both image and video, many of the latter being of the time lapse variety showing walls coming down or going up.
Let's start with one of the first things to happen during the renovation, the
demolition of a wall in the old men's locker room on April 27, 2018.
Moving quickly the work shifted to the lobby where things started coming down in rapid fashion, beginning with the
men's basketball locker room wall on May 9 and
women's basketball locker room wall two days later.
Now, just like building up a great athlete, things had to be broken down before they could be built back up better and stronger. Such was the case with the renovation so let's take a look at some videos showing just that – better and stronger facilities for Laker student-athletes and staff.
The first of these is a time lapse video of walls going up in what is now the
OrthoAtlanta Athletic Training Room from June 14, 2018.
Next up is a look at the construction of the
locker room walls on the men's side from June 28, more
time lapse from athletic training on July 3 and the
women's locker room from July 9.
It wouldn't be just training facilities and locker rooms that would see attention either. On July 24 a large portion of the
wall that forms the student-athlete lounge went up. The scope of the work would also include
reshaping the front of the basketball suite with a brand new door and wall on July 27.
Also among the areas addressed were the
replacement of the 1970's era windows on the original part of the building on August 16. Our final featured video (there's more on the video gallery page) is our
last point-of-view walkthrough of all of the changes as of August 31, 2018.
Video will rule the day but it can't show you everything – that's why we have video galleries too. Fans can check out all the galleries on the main page but let's highlight just a few, again, starting
at the beginning from April 12-19.
Before work could begin on the lobby, the trophy cases and the hard won trophies they contained had to be
relocated for safe keeping. Not long after things were cleared out did
walls start coming down. Check it out in a pair of galleries from May 7-13 and
May 14-20.
There's plenty more galleries of the old being torn down but let's turn our attention to the new coming into being. Check out the gallery from June 11-17, 2018 to see
the beginnings of a number of areas and July 9-15 to see
what it took to create the new lobby. Meanwhile, July 30-August 5 will give you a
much more finished look at the lobby and additional areas.
Check out the progression below from a month and two months later from
September 10-16 and
October 22-28 but be sure to check out everything in between on the main gallery page.
While we're still buttoning up a couple of loose ends on the full facility, the Department did
celebrate the ribbon cutting of the OrthoAtlanta Athletic Training Room on November 26. Check out the release for all the videos from that evening but be sure to click here for the
photo gallery.
The bottom line is that you don't get to be the No. 2 Moment in any year without making a significant impact. This year the Renovations of 2018-19 not only did that now but for decades to come as countless Laker student-athletes will benefit for the foreseeable future.
The Schedule
Every Friday throughout the Summer and leading up to the 2019-20 preseason, the SID Office will release the list one at a time beginning with the No. 10 story on June 7. The No. 1 story in Clayton State Athletics, as chosen by the Sports Information Office, will be released on Friday, August 9.
Countdown to the Top-10 Clayton State Athletics Stories from 2018-19
No. 1 – Coming August 9
No. 2 – Largest Renovation in Program History Impacts All Areas of Athletics (August 2)
No. 3 – Women's Track & Field Delivers Season for the Ages (July 26)
No. 4 – Men's Golf Returns To NCAA Tournament With Tremendous Campaign (July 19)
No. 5 – Major Hires and Record Department Numbers Highlight 2018-19 (July 12)
No. 6 – Women's Basketball Returns to NCAA Tournament for 13th Time in 15 Years (July 5)
No. 7 – Men's Track & Field Delivers Multiple Individual League Championships (June 28)
No. 8 – Undefeated Start Leads Women's Soccer Back to PBC Tournament (June 21)
No. 9 – Men's Basketball Garners Record-Setting Honors (June 14)
No. 10 – Men's Soccer's Late Run and Individual Accomplishments (June 7)
Honorable Mention (May 31)
