Equipping your school gym requires careful research to evaluate all of your options, given the variety of choices that must be made, from flooring and floor covers to fixed equipment and stationary equipment.

I think you’ll find this month’s special focus on gym equipment packed with lots of good purchasing solutions, whether you’re building a new gymnasium or updating your current facility.

Here are some great “take-aways” from this section.

1. Selecting Equipment
Research has shown that yellow is the most visible color in the spectrum. Thus, a yellow basketball is easier for a child to see and therefore catch (remember: keep your eye on the ball!). Yellow basketballs are also easily identified as school or institution property. Many companies offer many different brands and sizes so that schools can determine which style of ball they want to use, with options ranging from leather, composite/synthetic and rubber.

2. Evaluating Your Program
Does your physical education program help students attain the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for them to lead healthy, active and productive lives? This new school year the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) urges principals and teachers to conduct a self-study of their school’s physical education program--evaluate its strengths and weaknesses and then encourage a plan for improvement where needed. 

3. Choosing Your Flooring System
Many component configurations comprise the flooring system structure, and there are a multitude of system designs on the market. The quality of any system depends greatly on the quality of each individual system component, the quality and integrity of the total system design, and the quality of installation. In the best designs, the strengths of all components are integrated in such a way that the strength of the total system is greater than the sum of all the parts. The key point is that there is a wide variety of available flooring systems specifically designed to meet various needs, and they are not all created equally.

4. Buying a Floor Cover
The opportunity to buy a gym floor cover does not present itself very often to a facility, so make sure that you do it right the first time. In order to properly protect your floor, gym floor covers need to be custom manufactured. Standard sizes will not adequately protect your floor. Also, companies that specifically manufacture and sell gym floor covers have the most at stake in producing quality systems and standing behind them.

Finally, we wrap the section up with a roundup of some of the latest and greatest school athletic products for your gymnasium.