Water leak forces Heights basketball on the road in December

The first practices for winter sports were Monday. An exciting time but also a stressful one for the Heights basketball teams.

In late September, an air-conditioning unit on top of the gymnasium was dislodged during a storm and caused water damage on the wood floor. Heights athletic director Rick Wheeler said initially it appeared to be a quick fix, but the trapped water underneath the court was more than they anticipated.

Heights in the process of replacing the floor and Wheeler estimates it might not be finished until mid-December. The Falcons were scheduled to play at home against Kapaun Mount Carmel on Dec. 2 and against Northwest on Dec. 13, but the City League has switched the home dates with Kapaun and Northwest in the double round-robin schedule.

“We’re planning on being without it until Christmas,” Heights boys basketball coach Joe Auer said. “We’re going to be road warriors in every sense of the word in the month of December.”

Heights has four boys basketball teams and three girls teams this season with only its old gymnasium available.

The boys teams will shuttle to Northeast Magnet High, three miles from Heights, to practice in its two gymnasiums for the next month. Northeast does not have interscholastic athletic teams, sending their magnet students to other schools to play sports.

Auer said transportation will be provided to those who can’t drive, although this week of tryouts will be particularly challenging with more than 100 boys trying out for the teams.

“That will be quite a challenge,” Auer said. “It will no doubt be a test of patience.”

Wheeler said six games are played each night, so two gyms are needed. He said he reviewed playing the games at Northeast Magnet, but its secondary gym doesn’t have seating and there are sound-system limitations.

Auer actually has experience with this scenario. He said the same thing happen to Heights’ old gymnasium in 2007 when a water leak damaged the floor and the team couldn’t practice on it for almost two months.

“That will be an advantage of having an old coach,” Auer said. “When you get an old coach like me, you’ve been through just about everything before and unfortunately, I’ve got a little bit of experience dealing with this situation. You just have to try to stay positive because it’s out of our control.”

This story was originally published November 14, 2016 at 5:24 PM with the headline "Water leak forces Heights basketball on the road in December."