After another disheartening football loss Friday to Arkansas, many students are looking forward to SEC basketball and the intramural basketball season. Some students are asking why the University Student Recreation Complex hasn’t been fully repaired. Others want to know when it will be done and where they are going to play until it’s finished.”We won’t be in our gym, but we will play.” said Tamara Jarrett, University Recreation director. The repairs are starting now and will continue for some time. “There was about $3 million to $4 million worth of damage,” said Jarrett. She said the UREC staff has been working tirelessly to find alternative sites for basketball. “We will have intramural basketball,” said Jarrett. “We’ll have to find a way,” Part of the problem with the search is the lack of another gym in Baton Rouge like the UREC gym, where a number of games can be played at once. Even though Hurricane Gustav caused substantial damage to the campus, Jarrett noted there was some good that came out of it. The UREC was able to push some programs ahead that had been on the back burner like online services and a “multipurpose bank” on the tennis courts. Online services included classes, including aerobic and yoga. Students are able to log on to the UREC Web site and download the routines to do on their own time. “An architect has been selected and is working on the plans for repair. We expect that bids will go out around April 15, 2009,” said Emmett David, director of Facility Development. He said administrators hope to have  UREC “running by August 2009.” “UREC has the same priority as other building repairs that are going on around campus,” said David. The Maddox Field House, University Press, University System, Kirby Smith, the School of Music and many others are all under construction simultaneously, but there are different architects on each individual building, said David. UREC damage was more extensive, and therefore construction will take longer, said David. There are three areas that have to be repaired: the basketball floors, the roof and certain mechanical parts of the air conditioning unit in the basketball court area. Jarrett emphasized some of David’s points, saying her best guess would be the UREC will be functioning within 12 to 18 months from when the damage occurred. Some initial work has begun on the basketball courts. The warped floors are being torn up and thrown away, said Jarrett. It seems the intramural teams will have to do what the New Orleans Saints did in 2005. Instead of being able to just show up at UREC ready to play, some teams might have to travel to other area courts. Administrators hinted there may be potential for some intramural games to be played at the University Lab School gym. Unfortunately, all “pick-up” games will continue to be played on the tennis courts. It is unlucky that intramural teams will have to be inconvenienced this winter, but it is the consequence of being a state-sponsored school. It takes an act of the state legislature to raise tuition, and regrettably there is also a lot of red tape that has to be sorted through to get the UREC repaired. Facility services had to first assess the damage, then an architect had to be hired. But it couldn’t be just any architect. The search process had to be competitive because it’s a “state” project. Once the architect draws up the plans for the repairs, the plans go out to “bids.” Anytime the state or one of its entities, like the University, wants to get contract work done, the process must be competitive. By allowing any architect to compete for their job and any contractor to compete for the actual repair, it allows little room for corruption. Instead of giving the contract jobs to family, friends and campaign contributors, politicians have to allow jobs go out to bids. The process of buying the materials is also competitive where the state buys the supplies from the lowest bidder. While stopping corruption and striving to make the state more cost-efficient is great, it also slows things down. Students’ UREC fees shouldn’t go up because the state is saving money on the repairs, but the project will also not be done until August 2009. Unfortunately, students can’t have a repaired basketball gym and stable fees.  —-Contact Matthew Gravens at [email protected]