Old and new Recent refinishing work and a new paint job has given the gym floor at Port Aransas High School a new look. Above, athletic director Steve Reaves poses with the refurbished floor on Tuesday, Oct. 7. At right is the old floor, photographed in August. The Port Aransas High School Marlins and Lady Marlins will have a freshly refurbished gym floor when basketball season starts in November.

Jelco, an Austin firm, recently finished giving the Doyle Marek Gym floor a shiny facelift that includes bold new graphics.

"I'm very pleased with it," said Steve Reaves, athletic director of the Port Aransas Independent School District. "I like the Lady Marlins and Marlins graphics on the floor. That's something the kids are excited about."

The refurbishing job was done largely because the floor was beginning to show wear, Reaves said. School officials took advantage of the opportunity to give the floor a new look, too.

Refinishing the gym floor involved:

• Sanding the hardwood floor down 1/16th of an inch and repainting everything with a glossy oil-based paint, with Marlin-blue dominating.

STAFF PHOTOS BY DAN PARKER • Replacing the old logo at center court, which featured a leaping marlin. The new logo is a large "PA," painted with a three-dimensional effect. Reaves said he and the rest of the coaching staff decided against repainting a marlin partly because it's a difficult illustration to do realistically, and because the gym wall already features a huge painting of a leaping marlin.

• Widening the wide blue band that runs around the circumference of the court.

• Moving the words "Marlins" and "Lady Marlins" from the ends of the court to locations paralleling the longer sides of the court.

• Replacing a bright-red stripe that ran down the middle of the court with a blue stripe.

The refinishing work had a price tag of $15,485.

The first basketball games are expected to be played in early November.