How this court went from the Pan Am Games to Foot Locker Slam Fest to the Island Rec

The court has some dead spots.

Sanding and re-sanding over the past 30 years have worn it down.

It might have five more years of life, but a new facility is being built and, well, it’s time — soon, the floor will be no more.

“I’m a wood guy,” Hilton Head Island Recreation Center Executive Director Frank Soule said Thursday morning. “In the long run, having a wood (basketball court) brings character to your facility.”

The recreation center’s hardwood has plenty of it.

Bo Jackson has elevated to the hoop from its surface.

The late, great Pat Summitt has prowled its sideline.

LL Cool J once judged a slam-dunk contest on it.

But this weekend, the court will be torn out and replaced. The demolition is part of a $7-million expansion project that will add a new gymnasium and triple the center’s size. Soule doesn’t know what will become of the old court, which has been with the center, practically, since it opened in 1988.

Sanding and finishing it one more time would just prolong the inevitable. But Soule hopes someone will repurpose it. There’s talk of taking some of it as a souvenir.

Because this court, as you might have guessed, has a backstory.

David Goldberg was a vice president for marketing for Foot Locker in 1988 and looking for a venue for Slam Fest.

The event, held for the first time that year, pitted professional athletes — but not current pro basketball players — against each other in a slam-dunk contest. Retired NBA greats competed in a “senior slam.” And celebrities — comedians and rappers among them — judged the competition.

“The very first (Slam Fest) we did was on Hilton Head,” Goldberg said. “And we were making it up as we went along.”

Goldberg and crew were looking for a “studio feel” at the time — the contest would be taped before a live audience and aired on ESPN at a later date. They settled on the old May River Academy Gymnasium.

There was a slight problem, though — that facility didn’t have a “workable court.”

Hilton Head was up and coming at the time, said Carol Kavanaugh-Arrington, who then worked as the community services director for the new recreation center.

Her job was to find events that the center could assist with and use as fundraisers. High-profile ones like Slam Fest brought in the money and had the added benefit of boosting the island’s national profile.

It was a “revolutionary” approach to fundraising at a time when the standard practice was to write an “appeal letter” asking for contributions, she said.

So, she and Soule signed on to help with Slam Fest.

Meanwhile, Goldberg searched for a court.

At the time, a new one cost about $89,000, he said. Not in his price range. But he learned of a used hardwood in Indiana.

Indianapolis hosted the 1987 Pan American Games. Market Square Arena was the venue for basketball. Its court was virtually new, having only been used during the games.

Goldberg bought it for $11,000.

He shipped it to Beaufort County and put it down in May River’s gym.

“It was state of the art,” Kavanaugh-Arrington said.

Bo Jackson — who at the time played football for the Los Angeles Raiders and baseball for the Kansas City Royals — competed at Slam Fest on Saturday, Feb. 13, 1988. A black-and-white picture in The Island Packet shows Jackson throwing down a two-handed dunk. “Bo Jackson shows Slamfest form,” the caption reads.

He finished third and took home $15,000, according to then-Packet staff writer Brian Sander. About 800 people watched the event. LL Cool J was a celebrity judge.

After the event, the Foot Locker crew asked Kavanaugh-Arrington how they could repay her and her colleagues for their help.

“Kind of jokingly we said, ‘Well, that gym floor’s pretty nice,’ ” she said. “ ‘We could use it for the new rec center.’ ”

Voila!

“To be perfectly honest,” Goldberg said, “we were corporately generous.”

He chuckled.

“And it probably would have cost us more to take it apart and transport it,” he said.

Months later, the court was installed in the rec center. It would later host college volleyball tournaments and NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament games, according to Soule. Pat Summitt’s stern stares would grace the action on the floor.

And over the years it’s hosted adult basketball leagues and youth clinics.

Alan Perry — son of Charles Perry, who was instrumental in the rec center’s creation — said it’s been fun to watch kids dribble down the hardwood and come back years later as referees and coaches. Alan sprained his ankle on that court. And while he admitted there were dead spots on the floor, he said it never affected his dribble.

“My dribble was kind of dead, too,” he joked.

The Foot Locker logo has long since vanished from the floor.

There’s nothing visible on the hardwood that hints at its Pan Am Games history.

But there’s a nice, round “ISLAND RECREATION” logo at midcourt.

Soule hopes to cut it out and put it in the new facility.

He’s just got to find the right spot.

This story was originally published March 16, 2017 at 5:15 PM with the headline "How this court went from the Pan Am Games to Foot Locker Slam Fest to the Island Rec."