News

Nov 09, 2023

Red Wing to see gym floor makeover: An update on Winger athletics

A rendering released to the public by the Red Wing athletic department of the new main gym floor plan at the high school. Photo courtesy of Winger Athletics Sonju Gymnasium is due for a makeover. Both

A rendering released to the public by the Red Wing athletic department of the new main gym floor plan at the high school. Photo courtesy of Winger Athletics

Sonju Gymnasium is due for a makeover. Both scoreboards will be replaced and the flooring will be taken out and a new, fresh design will be installed in the coming two weeks. It’s all in part to keep up with what was budgeted last year and this year. More importantly, the scoreboards are getting a much needed upgrade as shot clocks will be used this coming school year in boys and girls basketball.

Red Wing athletics director Paul Hartmann said the gym flooring was also in need of a new look. The plan is to lean more into the Red Wing color scheme; purple, black and white. A rendering of the gym floor was released this week as construction begins in the coming days.

The main varsity and JV floor is the portion getting the new paint scheme. The remainder of the gym flooring will get refinished. The project came out close to $100,000 with money being used from the annual amount the department can use, booster club support and a few other donors.

A few smaller construction projects completed already include a new track surface and new playing surface on the tennis courts.

“These were things that were budgeted for four, five years ago,” Hartmann said. He added the impact of completing everything was needed not only to adjust to the shot clocks but in totality, the time to finally make the necessary updates and have them looking nice.

A new scorers table will hopefully become more interactive, the new scoreboards are set to be the increasingly popular boards that feature player numbers, fouls, points on each side of the score.

In regards to adding the shot clock, Hartmann said there will need to be another person trained in to operate it along with the usual announcers, scorers and scoreboard operators. This past school year, basketball teams were allowed to use the shot clock if both teams agreed to it beforehand and the host school had it installed. The HVL-TRC Showcase in Rochester was one of the first big events in the area to use shot clocks. Red Wing played with shot clocks on a visit to Kasson-Mantorville.

“As a parent and as an AD, I didn't even notice it until late in the game when it was a little bit tighter and teams can't run out the clock,” Hartmann said. “The game flow kept going. Finding those to fill the role of operating might be interesting. Kind of like how you have the same announcer every night, finding someone who is consistent is an art too. It'll take some practice and we found there are some hiccups in Kasson and there have been this summer, but we'll figure it out.”

Prairie Island Arena was one of the first to have its project completed. It was around this time last year, all new lighting was installed.

“Thankful to our booster club and our community for making it work,” Hartmann said.

Last year was the first for the Red Wing hockey co-op with Zumbrota-Mazeppa. The Wingers kept the team name, kept the same jerseys and played through the season with minimal apparent changes.

Hartmann said he had many talks with the boys and girls coaching staff about how the co-op was being managed and how the balance of adding new players, maybe even some unfamiliar faces, affected the teams.

The overwhelming constant was it was a success.

“There was a feeling out process for teammates and coaches,” Hartmann said. “In all my conversations with our coaches, the relationship side of things between the team, there weren't any issues. You went to graduation parties in the spring and saw Z-M kids at Red Wing parties and vice versa. I think coaches and players will tell you they wanted to be more successful on the ice. In terms of becoming a team, I thought it went really well.”

The co-op last year impacted the boys significantly more than the girls team. The boys program was able to field a JV team because of it. Hartmann predicted roughly 10 players for Red Wing might have been unable to play if not for the co-op. It’s still early for winter sports signups, but in talking with coaches, the girls may see numbers increase this year. Whether it is enough for JV for a full season is tough to tell at this point, but Hartmann said he was hopeful it meant the girls could play half of their JV schedule.

Overall for Red Wing, Hartmann said he would add a co-op in another sport and has gotten some requests. However, the current plan is not to add any more co-ops.

“We will entertain a co-op only when it will benefit our existing program,” he said.

For another school year removed from COVID-19 restrictions, Hartmann said the overall number of students participating in sports was up again. There was also a noticeable increase in participation in other activities through the city or for other club teams not affiliated with the school.

“To see more kids involved is great for our school, great for our community. In terms of winning conference, section titles it didn't occur this year,” Hartmann said. “Despite the recent turnover, we've been able to fill our coaching positions with high quality people and with educators who want to be here for kids.”

He continued to say that the amount of participation makes the athletes stronger for having competed and also the school stronger for having more avenues to learn and grow.

The learning process through athletics is one of the biggest aspects Hartmann has focused on since taking over as Red Wing AD. He said the commitment to that through the recent coaching hires is just one example of trying to build programs to help athletes find a passion and develop some physical and mental skills along the way.

“Getting to that team level at the high school and teaching them to fulfill their role that coach has designed for them, it might be the third person off the bench, it might be a starting role at JV, those are the kind of life-long skills for our coaches to teach these kids,” he said. “Any endeavor, any career, any family, you're going to have different roles to fill. It is not always going to be equal. How can we teach you to be the best you can be at the given task? I think that's one of the biggest things high school activities can teach.”

With the amount of options to choose from and to compete in, Hartmann hopes that more often than not, a student participates in multiple sports. He said they become a more well-rounded athlete and well-rounded person for having competed in multiple sports and had multiple opportunities to find success, learn from failure and strive to be better in everything they are doing.

It’s been put to a vote a few times over the years, but during the winter the vote finally passed. Boys volleyball will become a MSHSL sanctioned sport in a couple years. How officials are gathered and teams made, as well as what season to have it in, is all yet to be determined. Hartmann said he is not opposed to boys volleyball becoming a sport at Red Wing. The decisions made between now and the first school year it becomes official will determine much of how boys volleyball either survives or may not even be attempted in Red Wing.

Hartmann said with the three fall boys sports - football, soccer, cross country - and the four spring sports - baseball, track and field, tennis, golf - adding boys volleyball in the spring would be much tougher. He said it would not make sense, if spring were the agreed upon season for boys volleyball, to be a fifth sport and potentially hurt or have an existing sport affected.

Based on numbers in boys sports and what is offered, Hartmann hopes for Red Wing’s sake boys volleyball is a fall sport.

Finding officials to work the games would then be the next biggest hurdle. Hartmann said for boys volleyball to work at Red Wing, the scheduling would be treated like boys and girls soccer and basketball where each team is playing the same opponent, but one is on the road while the other is at home. Equipment would likely be shared as adding a new sport would put a sizable dent in the yearly budget.

Clearly, there is still much to be discussed at the highest level of the MSHSL in regards to giving boys volleyball the best chance for every school to offer it as a sport. Hartmann predicted that many schools in smaller communities would form co-ops if it meant they could offer it as another sport. That scenario perhaps would lower initial costs per school and create some shared costs on travel, uniforms and coaches that would be beneficial.

There is no current plan to add boys volleyball at Red Wing.

Written By

Martin Schlegel is sports editor for the Republican Eagle. He can be reached at [email protected].

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