Telegraph photo by TOM KING Bishop Guertin sophomore Kailee McDonald tries to fight through the Cardinal alumni trio of Nikkie Hayner, left, Bri Wilcox and Rachel Marion during recent action at the new Guertin summer hoop courts.

NASHUA – Bishop Guertin alum and former basketball standout Caroline Hoffer couldn’t believe it when she pulled into the school parking lot.

The tennis courts to the right had been transformed into a temporary, but very noticeable, basketball complex.

“I was just shocked, honestly,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting it. I mean, I just think it was a great opportunity.”

Indeed, the outdoor transformation at BG is a perfect example of the saying that if you build it and nowadays, do it safely, they will come. And that’s not just for ballfields.

This summer, Guertin has seen a bevy of activity as Cardinals girls basketball coach Brad Kreick, with help, has turned the school’s outdoor tennis courts into two full basketball courts. It’s mainly just for the summer and the fall, and the tennis courts will likely return in the spring.

Telegraph photo by TOM KING Bishop Guertin sophomore Brooke Paquette attempts a layup as teammate Meghan Stack looks on during recent action at the Guertin revamped outdoor hoop courts.

The conversion has brought well over 200 high-school age kids playing basketball at various days and times each week off Lund Road.

An outdoor basketball mecca.

Kreick said he first got the idea around mid-May. “It was becoming pretty clear that any significant indoor activity was not going to happen all that soon. But people were starting to open up in an outdoor environment pretty safely.”

So Kreick sat down with Guertin officials and “just kind of tossed out the idea of converting those courts, which don’t get used all that much when tennis isn’t in season, to basically an outdoor hoop environment. And they were incredibly supportive of the idea.”

“The space was there and it wasn’t (due to no spring season) getting used that much.”

Telegraph photo by TOM KING Bishop Guertin sophomore Kate Daley looks to go up for a shot as she gets past Cardinal alum Hannah Muchemore during recent action at the Guertin outdoor hoop courts, temporarily converted from the usual tennis courts.

Kreick said the conversion cost about $2,000, and if that seems low, it was because most of the cost was just for materials. The work was done by a host of volunteers.

“It’s kind of funny,” Kreick said. “We put a little work crew together. We did a ton of work repairing the cracks on the courts, sealing them up, getting them painted and installing the hoops.”

The crew was partly made up of a few parents of players in the Guertin program, a couple of former players, “who spent a lot of hours in the hot sun on their hands and knees painting, etc.”

Not only that, the crew had to take out the small poles that the tennis nets are attached to with a jack, then seal those areas.

“They come in and out, but hadn’t been taken out in years,” Kreick said. “So we had to cover them up, seal them up in a way that when we convert back to tennis courts, they’ll go back in.”

The only outside help the group got was a company to paint and stripe the courts.

“We were told there was a little bit of art to that and we didn’t want to screw it up,” Kreick said. “We found somebody that knew what they were doing, and we banged it out in a day.”

Plus, huge billboards were done with the Guertin logo, donated by a parent who runs a sign business.

The thing is, usually high school basketball players are busy in summer leagues and AAU programs; a lot of that was not happening due to the pandemic.

Both current Guertin players Megan Stack and Kate Daley said that the options for summer hoops until this happened “were kind of up in the air.”

“We were in other people’s back yards,” Stack said.

“Our kids and John’s (boys head coach Fisher) kids on the boys side, pretty typically this time of year they’re all playing three or four days a week in a hard core AAU environment,” Kreick said. “I chatted with John and said, ‘Hey, let’s try to build it here, and give our kids an opportunity to try to develop in the off season outside, where everybody knows it’s pretty safe.”

Kreick said it’s just another example of Guertin staying ahead of the curve.

“BG won’t toot its own horn, but they’ve done an outstanding job managing the school through this whole COVID crisis,” he said. “They converted the school over a weekend in March to a pretty robust remote model without skipping a beat, and have made some pretty significant investments in technology so they’ll be way ahead of the curve come the fall in whatever environment we find ourselves in.

“Those are academic things but to me this is just an extension of them being pretty creative and thoughtful about how to keep the kids engaged athletically in a pretty tough situation.”

The easy part? Getting teams from other communities to come in and join the party.

“There was a lot of pent-up demand,” Kreick said. “Nobody was playing inside, most of the courts were shut down. It was really nothing more than us reaching out to some of the AAU programs, particularly some in which our kids were playing, letting them know we were going to be doing this, and getting them organized with schedules, finding refs.”

And, of course, protocols have to be followed: Temparture checks for every player who enters the courts, wearing a mask, etc. All of the spectators that are inside the fence have to wear a mask, “and we try to limit (the number of spectators),” Kreick said.

There are also spectators who, as during tennis season, can watch from outside the fence with no restrictions. Players also have to answer a health and travel questionaire.

“BG has put together a set of guidelines that really are in line with what the CDC and public health experts put together for society in general and amateur sports in particular,” Kreick said. “BG tweaked it and actually made it a little more rigorous, which is great from a safety perspective. And we’re just following those guidelines to the letter of the law.”

Kreick said there was so much demand, no one would complain about any protocols.

“Everybody is so happy there’s an opportunity for kids to play,” Kreick said. “They’re more than pleased to jump through all the hoops and guidelines that everybody knows are pretty important to keep everybody safe.”

Kreick sent out a text, made a couple of phone calls. When teams said they were interested, he made sure they knew the guidelines.

“We didn’t have anybody who didn’t say, ‘Absolutely, let’s go,'” Kreick said.

The reason? “A lot of the high schools still aren’t open for business for traditional summer leagues,” he said. “For us, a lot of it is in an open gym environment for the boys and girls programs. Most of the live games are AAU games.

“But here, some of the best players in New England are playing on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.”

In fact, Guertin had a team come in with 11 players, eight of them scholarship players.

“There’s some serious talent,” he said. “Most of the competition has just been fantastic for anybody who’s been playing there. Again, the point was to give the kids an environment to get better, and that’s exactly what’s happening.

“Selfishly our kids our getting better, but you’ll see on any Tuesday or Wednesday night kids from Nashua South, or (Manchester) Memorial or Central, from Pinkerton, you name it. Those kids are cycling through with their AAU programs, so it’s been nice to see.”

One of the games even featured Guertin girls alumni vs. the current Cardinals.

“It looks so awesome,” Daley said. “We can come down and play basketball if we want, use the hoops. It’s definitely just really nice. When the season got cut short, we have an opportunity to play again.”

“I think it was really cool,” current Guertin player Megan Stack said. “I’ve seen outdoor semi-courts, but this is really a complex and I think it’s really cool that we can have this option now. … Just to be outside.

“I think this was the plan ever since the quarantine started. It was impressive.”

Kreick or another member of the coaching staff or a trusted parent will be there to supervise. And some former players are involved as well, running the scorers table and keeping the time. And they use an “old school” flip cards for a scoreboard.Referees, who are paid, Kreick said “are some of the same guys you’ll see in high school gyms during the winter.”

In a lot of ways, it’s back to the future.

“When we were growing up, nobody played games in the summer indoors,” Kreick said. “It was all outside. It’s all pretty cool.”

Hoffer agreed.

“I think it’s just a great opportunity (for kids) to keep playing over the summer,” she said. “Especially in circumstances now, and in the open air. Everyone keeps playing, keeps getting in shape.

“It’s crazy how much it’s transformed.”

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