New wrestling mats on the way for ECHS

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Published on Friday, 29 June 2012 11:30

Tyler Palmateer
Daily Elk Citian 

Sometime around mid-August, the difficulty of moving around heavy wrestling mats from the junior high gym, to the ninth grade gym will end for Elk City High School. 

Athletic director Bill Weatherly said Tuesday the school has ordered new lightweight mats, which will be easier to move from the junior high, where practices are held, to the ninth grade gym, where regular season matches currently take place. 

“We’ll keep the old mats, but theyre so heavy that it’s not a whole lot of fun to move them from gym to gym,” Weatherly said. “The new mats are more functional for what we need, plus it will free up the gym if we need it for basketball or city league games.” Aside from their mobility — it required multiple people to roll up and move the old wrestling mats — one of the benefits of the new mats are their durability and non-slip surface. 

Weatherly said the administration looked into re-covering the old mats, but decided it was more cost-effective to simply buy new equipment. Over time, it would be more expensive for the school to continue re-covering the old mats.