Gov. Mifflin to begin construction of new basketball home
Gov. Mifflin will soon have a new basketball, wrestling and volleyball home.
The school district is breaking ground Tuesday on a Community Center, which will bring basketball and other sports back to the high school campus, starting in the fall of 2023.
The 2022-23 season will be the last for the Mustangs at the Intermediate School, where they have played boys basketball home games since the mid 1970’s and girls basketball games since the early 1990’s.
The Intermediate School has been home to countless Berks, District 3 and PIAA playoff basketball games in recent decades. Top Berks players such as Donyell Marshall, Wendy Davis, Chris Finch, Joe Linderman, Rashida Suber, Lonnie Walker IV and Stevie Mitchell played there.
The court was home to one of the greatest upsets in Berks basketball playoff history, when Wyomissing beat Reading High in a 1986 league semifinal.
All eight of Gov. Mifflin’s boys 1,000-point scorers played there, from Mike Johnson, in 1993, to Bubba Peters, the most recent in 2017.
Starting next year the Mustangs will make new memories and new history on a brand new court and in an arena that will seat 2,200, roughly 400 more than their current home.
The Community Center is part of a three-phase, $58-million renovation and renewal project that began last year. It will be located adjacent to Mifflin Stadium and the school’s turf practice field, facing South Waverly Street and the high school. The Community Center is the second of three construction phases.
To see a map of the Gov. Mifflin campus and proposed construction site, click here:
It will include a weight room, locker rooms, a sports medicine athletic training facility, a wrestling room and two classrooms for health. The top level will have an indoor track. The athletic office will be relocated there, as well.
It will be centrally located on the Mifflin high school/middle school campus, with easy access to the high school as well as all of the school’s playing and practice fields.
“It’s obviously a benefit to the athletic program, but also a benefit to the district,” said athletic director Pat Tulley, noting that the facility will be available for community use as well as for students.
“From an athletic standpoint, it allows us to stay on our campus,” he said. “We’ll be able to play our games here on the high school/middle school campus.”
Tulley also noted that it will give the high school a venue where the entire high school population can assemble at the same time; currently the high school doesn’t have a gym or auditorium large large enough to hold all of its students.
When construction is complete (targeted for August 2023), the high school and middle school gyms, locker rooms and offices that will be relocated to the Community Center will be re-purposed into class rooms or a cafeteria, freeing up much-needed space in those buildings.
The facility will offer additional resources and space for a modern health and physical education curriculum that includes courses such as yoga and meditation, strength and principals of coaching and officiating.
The Intermediate School gyms will remain in use for gym classes, practices, junior high and middle school events and local youth leagues.
The Gov. Mifflin swimming and water polo teams will continue to practice at play at the Intermediate School.
The high school has two gymnasiums, both of which are considered too small to host varsity sports competitions; the girls last played home basketball games there in the early 1990’s.
Phase 1 of the project began in June, 2021, and focused on upgrades to mechanical equipment, such as boilers, chillers and air ventilation units.
Phase 3, scheduled to begin in summer 2023, will see dining and kitchen facilities relocated to the former gym area, a Media Center and other upgrades. It is projected to be completed in December 2024.
Gov. Mifflin High School opened in 1957, replacing Shillington High.
Mifflin Stadium opened in 1982; lights were added in 1984.
