Kicking Off a New Era in Team Sports

Designed and built in 1940, students, fans, and patrons of the Camp Hill sports program in Pennsylvania spent decades rooting for their hometown teams within the confines of an outdated stadium with cracked stands, sagging bleachers with exposed nail heads, and subpar on-field conditions.

As a result, most home teams, such as tennis and track and field, competed on the road or off-site, while the football team held its halftime meetings on the pool deck rather than in the aging field house.

However, all of that changed in the fall of 2014 when Christian L. Siebert Park reopened after a six-month, $4.7 million facelift that included a new artificial turf field, home stadium seating stretching nearly the entire length of the football field, an indoor team room attached to public restrooms, a field house with enough space to accommodate two full-size football teams as well as new tennis courts, six-lane track, and softball field.

“This was an extremely exciting and important project that took nearly three years for Camp Hill Township to put together,” said Bob Royer of KS Heagy Contractors, Inc. of Lemoyne, PA. “The grand opening in October was attended by thousands and even covered by all the local news stations. This was a much-needed and significant expenditure for a community with a great sense of pride and deep loyalty to its high school sports teams.”

Royer noted that because Camp Hill isn’t an overly affluent community, every dollar had to be maximized. “The specification process had to ensure not only the best value but also the long-lasting durability of all the products,” he said. “No one expects to go another 75 years before an upgrade, although a decade or two would really help the local budget.”

Finding Lockers That Inspired

One of the most important morale-boosting upgrades to the athletic programs was to the team and officials’ locker and meeting rooms. Scranton Products, a leading manufacturer of durable, low-maintenance partitions and lockers made with HDPE, was chosen as the supplier of the stadium’s bathroom partitions, lockers, and athletic storage cubbies.

According to Paul Hostetter at Hostetter Supply in Seven Valleys, PA, Scranton Products went above and beyond the role of supplier and worked directly with the project’s contractors and architects to produce dozens of customized athletic cubbies used by the facility’s home and away players in each locker room.

Consisting of top shelving and side paneling, Scranton Products produced the cubbies with HDPE sheet material guided by the Siebert Park specifications for easy on-site installation at the stadium.

“These cubbies were created to withstand the wear and tear that comes with storing the gear of entire football teams for years to come,” Hostetter said. “They turned out beautifully and will stay that way with little maintenance. Scranton Products could not have made the process easier. We provided the dimensions and they pre-cut the material in their factory, which saved us time and labor on the jobsite.”

Hostetter added, “Customer service is just one of the reasons we’ve specified Scranton Products’ locker and partitions for so many years.  Everything they make stands up to the rigors of time, no matter the application. There was no doubt who we were turning to for this job.”

More Than Just Lockers

In addition to the cubbies, Scranton Products was selected to supply partitions for several of the new complex’s restrooms as well as lockers for referee changing rooms. Given the high-impact requirements of the application, the company’s Hiny Hiders were the ideal choice for partitions given their non-porous, HDPE surface, which is naturally resistant to odors, mold, and mildew.

Easy to clean, graffiti wipes off with most non-abrasive cleaners, and the partitions can be power washed and steam cleaned without the worry of rust.

Another important factor in the selection of Scranton Products’ custom-cut sheet material as well as partitions and lockers was their resistance to a major student health concerns: insidious new strains of bacteria. Especially considering the dark, moist environments of gym lockers, they can be a breeding ground for staph infections and new strains of MRSA, drug-resistant bacteria.

MRSA typically causes skin infections that can usually be treated effectively by doctors, but if left untreated, can destroy tissue and cause extreme illness. The CDC urges MRSA education, and routine cleaning and disinfecting is recommended for lockers.

Safe for Students and Faculty

According to David Casal, national director of sales & marketing for Scranton Products, the company’s HDPE solid plastics are naturally germ-resistant materials and can be easily cleaned. “We tested our Tufftec gym lockers with a company called SiTU Biosciences LLC’s ISO 22196 methods,” he said. “The test results showed that 98.4% of the MRSA bacterial died off the surface of HDPE plastic without the use of any cleaning solutions after 24 hours.”

The Tufftec lockers, used in the officials’ locker rooms, are also designed to meet the demands of the harshest daily use while remaining virtually maintenance-free. The lockers are impact, dent, and graffiti resistant as well as impervious to moisture. All Scranton Products lockers and partitions are also GREENGUARD Gold Certified, meeting the strictest standards for improved indoor air quality, which is especially important in schools.

“Scranton Products certainly came through for us,” Royer noted. “Everyone involved with the Siebert Park renovation couldn’t be happier with their support and the quality of the complete range of products they provided. It truly has enhanced the new stadium and its facilities.”