MANCHESTER, NH – Wolfe Park, located just off South Main Street in southwest Manchester, is on its way to be the latest success in Manchester’s plan to reinvigorate and support its basketball community.
If you visited Wolfe Park a year ago clad in mesh shorts with basketball in hand, you probably would not have been able to get your head in the game. Mark Gomez, Manchester’s Chief of Parks, said that upon visiting the courts he could see it had been neglected for quite some time.
“There were cracks in the surface [of the courts], bent rims. They needed to be completely rebuilt,” Gomez said.
It’s part of a story that almost every section of Manchester has seen, dilapidated basketball courts and ratty soccer fields, not really something that inspires people to go out and work up a sweat. But, over the past three years Gomez says that he and the parks department has really made an effort to revitalize infrastructure for basketball and other sports.
“For some time I felt that Manchester did a poor job of supporting local basketball with public courts. We really made an effort to rebuild and renovate several courts,” Gomez said.
Given a tour around Manchester, one could say that effort paid off.
Pulaski Park, Rock Rimmon Park, Enright Park and Sheridan-Emmett Park all recently became home to newly installed or renovated basketball courts. After breaking ground on April 24 at Wolfe Park, Gomez said by June it will join that list of successes.
The city has also had a bit of philanthropic support in revitalizing its parks. The cost of the renovation project at Wolfe Park is somewhere in the ballpark of $137,000, but thanks to support from Chris Brickly with the Lids Foundation, and Project Backboard, the city will only pick up 25 percent of the costs, or about $35,000.
Chris Brickly is a Manchester native who is now a prominent NBA Skills Trainer. Gomez said Brickly and his agent approached the city last year to see if there was a basketball court in need of renovation. After telling Brickly about the courts at Wolfe Park he, along with his corporate sponsors through the Lids Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to promoting and enabling active lifestyles in communities, agreed to pick up $73,000 of the renovation cost.
The remaining $29,000 is being donated by Project Backboard, a charitable organization whose mission is to renovate public basketball courts and adorn them with large mural-like art.
“It’s been really uplifting to see so many private organizations step forward with funds to support youth sports over the past couple of years,” Gomez said.
Gomez also attributes much of the Parks Department’s recent success to the appointment of Kate Waldo, the new project manager for Manchester’s Adopt a Site program, which encourages local businesses, local landscaping professionals and volunteers to assist with beautifying public spaces.
“It’s kind of indicative of a groundswell of donor and volunteer energy that we’ve been able to tap into,” Gomez said. “I think it’s been out there for some time.”
Gomez said the work at Wolfe Park is on schedule, with new asphalt laid down, they’re getting ready to install the new hoops, the court top coat and for the painting.
Last week a construction crew was on site working hard installing the bases and poles for the new hoops. They said “Everything’s going great.”
Look for shiny new hoops at Wolfe Park next month and if you feel the need to lend a hand to help keep Manchester beautiful visit their website at www.manchesternh.gov/Departments/Parks-and-Recreation/Adopt-A-Site.
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