The old gymatorium at Williamsburg Community Junior-Senior High School will be getting a makeover to house cafeteria facilities for the high school. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

WILLIAMSBURG — For years, the Williamsburg Blue Pirates would “toast” opposing basketball teams in their small, old gym known affectionately as the “cheese box.”

In the near future, instead of making a toast, the high school students will be eating toast — and other breakfast and lunch foods — in the gym, last used for PIAA basketball in 1979.

The Williamsburg Community School Board is seeking bids for a project to renovate about 470 square feet of the existing gymnasium to include a serving line and a dishwashing area to serve about 245 students daily.

The new cafeteria area would end the practice of high school students making the short trek up the hill to eat in the elementary school cafeteria.

Discussions for a better plan to serve the students came to life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our high school students were unable to continue eating in the district’s elementary cafeteria and follow social distancing guidelines without severely disrupting the elementary students’ lunch schedule. Our elementary students would be eating late into the afternoon and our high school students would be eating soon after breakfast was served,” high school Principal Mike Jones said. “Because of this issue, it was decided in the summer of 2020 that the majority of the high school students bring their lunch back to the old gym/auditorium on a daily basis and eat at the tables and chairs that were set up.”

Business Manager Kalie Zebrosky said the facility will still be used as a multi-purpose room and for basketball practices.

“We will install a serving line for high school students who have had to walk to the elementary cafeteria. The food will still be prepared at the elementary school and brought down to the high school. It will be set up like a cafeteria with tables,” Zebrosky said. “We will still be able to have practices and assemblies. It will be like a multi-purpose room. We are very excited to give the high school kids this space within the building.”

Williamsburg received a $500,000 grant through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund.

“This project will fall within the parameters of this grant,” Zebrosky said, adding that the school hopes work can start in late July and wrap up in late September or early October.

Jones said the backboards in the gym, which date back to the 1930s, will be replaced with new ones thanks to a donation by a Williamsburg alumnus.

But some former players want the hoops preserved.

Former boys and girls basketball coach and 1962 graduate Don Appleman has offered to buy them.

“I did not want to see them destroyed. Maybe we could put one on the wall in the new gym or put one at the community center,” Appleman said.

“I am really concerned about the heritage and tradition,” he added. “This gym was built with wooden backboards back in the 1930s, part of the WPA (Works Progress Administration created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt). This goes back about 85 years.”

Appleman said he spent a lot of his life shooting at those baskets.

“I have an attachment to that place. Think of all the championships that were won on that floor, all of the outstanding players, what it means to the basketball tradition of Williamsburg. That is where it all began,” he said. “This is a place of great historical value.”

Terry Cooper, a standout player from the Class of 1968, talked with Jones back in February.

“He was aware of the basketball history and was thinking of some ideas as to how they might celebrate the past success,” Cooper said.

Cooper said he and his wife, Sue, recently visited the old gym for the first time in 50 years.

“The gym is, to this day, almost exactly as I remembered it,” he said.

“It was like going through a time machine back to our youth and it brought back a lot of fond memories. The gym was the venue for a lot of great basketball games and some pretty darn good teams and players. It would be great to see the gym get a facelift and to commemorate the facility as a basketball shrine,” Cooper said.

Cooper recently asked a group of former players if they would consider making a donation to get something done, perhaps a plaque to commemorate the old gym.

Jones said a decision has not yet been made in regard to a way to commemorate the facility.

“We discussed putting something in the old gym to commemorate it, however, it will still be used for multiple purposes, including but not limited to, lunch, physical education, basketball practices, classes, presentations, shows and ceremonies,” he said. “We would love to continue working with the community to find the best way to show off what we have accomplished and what we are currently doing for our Williamsburg High School students.”

Mirror Staff Writer Walt Frank is at 814-946-7467.