NOVEMBER 2004

Your facility is the sum of its parts and that includes the sports equipment that fills your fields and gyms. With a sport-by-sport guide and handy profiles of recent installations, this special pullout insert will help guide you through the process of choosing everything needed to outfit your facility, from bleachers to basketball systems and soccer balls to safety bases.

Improving your facility's curb appeal or enhancing facility grounds with a well-designed landscape is an investment that if done wisely, can reap great dividends for the environment, your patron's well-being and even your revenues. Learn how the use of current landscape design ideas, well-chosen plant materials, proper installation and maintenance can ensure that your facility's grounds can be economical, low-maintenance and around for years to come.

In the fitness industry, what's hip seems like it changes before it really catches on. Depending on where you live, what's hot could be ahead of the curve or "so last year" for other places. We take a look at what's going on at some of the country's most forward-thinking health clubs so you know what's on the fitness horizon.

Most park districts and recreation facilities face spring and summer seasons packed with the games and practices of various baseball and softball programs. Thus it's essential that playing facilities be in proper condition for use. No matter the level of your sports turf maintenance program, the aim is to identify and correct hazardous conditions that may exist at your facilities. The goal is to reduce the frequency and possible severity of player injury and to eliminate unnecessary accidents through proper field inspection and maintenance.

After years of constructing athletic and play courts—from tennis, basketball, volleyball to multipurpose and multiplay areas and inline hockey rinks—the park and recreation industry is now faced with courts that are cracked and deteriorating. Why are these courts cracking, how are they deteriorating and what solutions are available to solve these problems?

In recent years, many communities with traditional pools have had very few alternatives for enhancement to their facilities. They must either look for funds to replace or renovate the facility or permanently close it. Thanks to a continuing trend in aquatic recreation, there is another alternative that costs less to construct, is flexible enough to be used as a stand-alone facility or enhancement of an existing facility, and takes less time and money to maintain: the splash play area.

When neighbors of a new $8 million high school in West Des Moines, Iowa, challenged the school's architectural team to prove that nighttime lighting of the school's dual soccer/football field would not spill into the surrounding area, the designers and engineers had their work cut out for them. It would mean actually setting up lights after dark to test light distribution on the field and light cutoff in the neighborhood. If the test wasn't successful, Valley High School, one of the largest high schools in the state, wouldn't be able to play any night games.