The Lee Trepanier Gymnasium at Point Loma High School is getting spruced up for the holidays – and beyond.
The indoor athletic facility, one of the largest of any high school in the region, is believed to have been built in the late 1940s. It contains a large balcony with exercise space and many additional bleachers.
The bleachers have served thousands of students and audience members well for nearly 70 years, but the main floor bleachers are being replaced. They have already been removed and installation of the new bleachers will begin over the upcoming winter break.
Principal Hans Becker said: “It will be about a two-week process. We’ve scheduled games and practices around the construction – not ideal, but we’ll make it work.”
Teams currently in-season who will be affected include boys and girls basketball and boys and girls wrestling.
Already completed in the gym is an artist retouching of the beautiful Point Loma mural that adorns one wall, adding the words “Point Loma” to both baselines, placement of padded cushions with the school logo behind the baskets, painting the school’s logo at mid-court, darkening the floor with an arc to mark the three-point shooting distance in prep basketball, a silhouette image of the Cabrillo National Monument on the court and re-staining of the wooden walls.
“The floor and improvements look amazing,” Becker said.
Trepanier was a beloved math teacher at PLHS who coached the girls basketball teams to state championships four consecutive years from1984-87. During that time his teams won 122 games and lost only one. One of Trepanier’s players, Sylvia Maas, remains at the school as a biology teacher.
Affectionately known as “Coach T,” he helped his players who often came to school hungry and provided home telephones to several families who had none.
After posting a 335-51 record over 14 seasons, Trepanier was diagnosed with cancer and died in 1991.
The gymnasium project is part of the long-range, Proposition S-funded plan for upgrading the school that has already included a new classroom building, conversion of the former wood shop to a music facility, construction of a Motion Picture Facility, weight room, resurfacing of the stadium field, a new stadium scoreboard, adding stadium lighting and a new PA system in the stadium.
Security fencing is currently being installed at the campus.