Doing a 180 On the Hoops Court
JMU officially unveiled the design for its new basketball court a few weeks ago. I didn’t say much about it at the time. To be frank, it was because I didn’t love it. But I didn’t really understand the outrage it brought about from folks either. I mean, it’s just a basketball court. Love it or hate it, it’s sort of trivial, no? Again though, I didn’t really love it. I didn’t even like it at all actually. But now that it’s complete, I dig it. I really do. My only complaint is they left the word “blog” off the baseline. Other than that, it’s different, but I like it. Even if I thought I thought I was going to hate it. Maybe there’s a lesson in there somewhere. Probably not. It’s just a basketball court.
I never thought it was a bad idea. I did really like the submitted ideas with James Madison’s head painted somewhere on the court, or the ones with his signature.
I hated it, then I liked it, then yesterday I saw the players on it and hated it again.
I don’t really care it is just a basketball court. I think they achieved their goals:
1 – Generate interest and get folks to talk about, whether you like it or not people talked about it. (i.e. just like blue turf in Boise or crazy court design at Oregon).
2 – Create a clearly recognizable court design and give JMU Basketball court an identity.
It looks like a cartoon. Its goofy but I will not get do down on it till I see it in person.
Maybe JMU should address the fact that the convo is old and crappy instead of dressing up the basketball court. It’s like putting icing and sprinkles on shit. It’s still shit.