The Texas Christian University basketball fan base is passionate about its court’s floor. So when the university tweeted out a picture of the hardwood being refinished over summer, people got a little concerned.
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The Texas Christian University basketball fan base is passionate about its court’s floor. So when the university tweeted out a picture of the hardwood being refinished over summer, people got a little concerned.
“Did you guys lose a bet or something?” one follower tweeted about the image of the court covered in vinyl stencils, apparently under the impression it was the final product. “Basketball court or Pokémon battle arena?” quipped another, as the Twitter account was quickly inundated with numerous memes balking at the “new look.”
TCU, the home of the Horned Frogs, quickly sent out a tweet of reassurance that the court that the court was just being refinished, and that it would retain its signature look, which it has had for three years.
“It won’t actually be blue, fam,” the university tweeted, and fans let out a sigh of relief.
The brief Twitter uproar made some buzz in the college sports world, and even got a headline in USA Today.
Abby Mitchell, who did the refinishing work with her company, Ponder Company, couldn’t help but chuckle at the misunderstanding.
“The blue is the vinyl,” she explained. “That’s the stencil that we put down so we could get that pattern.”
Ponder Company maintains all of the wood floors at TCU, typically screening and coating the basketball court at least once a year, according to Mitchell.
This year the court was completely refinished, Mitchell said, and the company gave the maple floor four cuts, using Bona big machines and starting off with a 36-grit.
Using water-based Bona products, Ponder then sealed the floor before applying the seal mixed with white paint in the main court area.
“Once that was down, then we went on and we painted the border black and added the purple with the frog skin [pattern] … we did all the letters separate so the frog skin didn’t pop through [them],” Mitchell said. “Then we added all the game lines and then we mixed the seal with black to make the gray tint.”
The company then added the stencils from a graphics company, pulling out all the “squares and triangles and craziness” before putting down more gray-tinted stain.
The finished product. (Courtesy of Abby Mitchell)
“We actually ended up putting three coats on top of it just to help protect it,” Mitchell said.
Ponder Company was there for a month solid, working seven days a week. “It was very labor-intensive,” Mitchell said.
When USA Today published the playful story about the Twitter uproar, Mitchell, who graduated from TCU, shared it with the crew.
“I cracked up,” Mitchell said. “It was funny.”
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