By Evan Anderson, The Whetstone 

Once I got the basketball, I looked at my defender, thinking how I would get by him and get to the rim.

By the time I got past him, my defender had fallen to the ground. I was at the rim and made the layup.

At first, I assumed I made him fall. What I found out later was that he had tripped over a metal piece sticking out of the gymnasium floor just to the right of the foul line.

As I looked at this metal piece sticking out of the ground, I felt confused and thought, “How in the world is there a hook on the foul line of this court?”

I’m terrified of stepping on that piece of metal now.

You can find it in Wentworth Gymnasium, in College Center.

This is a problem because I and my teammates on the men’s basketball team have serious, collegiate games on that court and I don’t want to end up stepping on it and getting injured.

Wentworth Gymnasium is too small and compact, frustrating student-athletes like me. We’d like to see either a completely new facility or for the administration to make some much-needed changes to Wentworth.

If only for a start, get rid of that piece of metal.

Wentworth Gym only has a maximum capacity of 400 seats, only five rows of bleachers, including the floor – this is not enough for the Wesley College student body, plus outsiders attending sporting events like basketball games.

The gymnasium needs to be expanded, whether it’s a new facility or renovation to this one.

The gymnasium always ends up getting overcrowded and tight at basketball games. I’ve seen students and fans walking in front of our team’s bench, right in front of me, trying to find a seat in the stands behind us. This causes frustration for the players and coaches focused on the game.

“It’s actually dangerous, too,” sophomore Wesley basketball player Jonathan Wilds said. “That’s a health risk for the fans and players because they come close to touching us when they pass by.”

Just this past January, I witnessed an injury by a player right in front of me. The player had slammed his head into the wall of the gymnasium after falling to the floor from a layup. Next thing I know, he’s having a seizure on the floor from the impact of his head and the non-padded wall.

If the gym was bigger, or if there were more padding on the walls, that injury probably wouldn’t have happened.

It’s been nearly 10 years since the floor of Wentworth Gym was renovated. We’ve been repeatedly told that either the gym would be renovated, or we’d be getting a new facility.

But we’ve seen no changes. It’s time for a change.

Fix the gym. Or get us a new one.