BY JACOB KRASNOWI

SPORTS SHOWTIME REPORTER

A year ago today, LSU’s campus looked a little different.

Students received a rude welcome last fall when the winds of hurricane gustav ripped through Baton Rouge, covering the school’s grounds with what seemed like every tree limb within a ten-mile radius and robbing the football team of its home-opener against Troy.

Luckily, the tree limbs were removed and the troy game was rescheduled.

However, there was one facility on LSU’s campus that is still reeling over a year after Gustav made landfall – the University Recreation Center.

It is safe to say that Gustav was not an advocate of recreational sports, as last September he ripped the roof off of the UREC facility. The hole allowed rain water to seep into the facility and destroy the basketball courts.

The damage was so widespread that the UREC is still in a state of disrepair today. Reporter Jacob Krasnowi caught up with Michael Giles, the project management director, to check up on the progress of the construction.

“We’re probably about midway through for the gym component, said Giles. “We started the first of July, and the deadline, as of right now, is October 31st for the gym to be complete. We’re about midway, a little bit less than midway and I actually think the contactors are actually a little bit ahead of schedule.”

Giles explained how the new roof will work.

“See that part right there is, was what we did in 2006 with the renovation,” said Giles. “That is an extension of this building that we did in 2006. When we added onto the building that was the new style of flat roof that was put on. That’s the new, that’s the latest standards of how they do roofing here at LSU versus this type of roofing structure.”

It’s the hope of both UREC staff members and students alike that the renovations will be reason to raise the roof.