ESCANABA---With classes back in session at Bay College, the buzz has been about the new athletic programs that will begin one year from now.

The college is launching men’s and women’s basketball and cross country programs next fall. Now, while there are plenty of trails to run cross country on in Delta County, there are no college-ready gyms for basketball. So, where will the Bay College Norse play basketball?

Bay College Athletic Director Matt Johnson says the gym at the YMCA on the Escanaba campus will do just fine…after lots of renovation work coming between now and next fall.

“Our scoreboards haven’t been updated since the 60’s when the facility was built,” Johnson said. “They need to be updated. The lines on the floor…the three-point line in college basketball has moved back since 1968. So, we have to strip everything down, sand everything down, and repaint all the lines on the floor.”
 

But Johnson says the facility is structurally sound.

“The structure is solid, the floor is good,” he said. “All the expensive things, parts of a facility, are there. They’re more than college-playable. I think next fall, when people come walk into our gym to watch our men’s and women’s teams play, they’re going to be blown away with what the facility looks like.”

But where will people sit? The bleachers are old.

“We will put new bleachers in,” Johnson laughed. “We’re going to have room for probably about an extra 300 people than what the current bleachers hold. So, we will be right around 900 people is what the facility is going to sit.”

Johnson says he has already put together a strong schedule for the basketball teams to play next fall, and will begin recruiting kids from across the U.P. to come to school at Bay.

The college announced this summer it would add athletics for the first time since the 1970’s in an effort to boost enrollment…and dollars…at the school.