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Beech Glen - Where Hoop Dreams Get Laid Up
by Tyler Coates
Just playing a little basketball is about all ex-players -- and even many people who never had the chance to play on a team -- want to do in their spare time. Beech Glen Community Center provides that sweet opportunity.
The gym at Beech Glen has brand new extra-soft goals, floors so sticky that you twist your ankle if you stop too quick, and is just big enough to where a lot of pick up games happen.
Men and women from all over the east side of Madison get together for hoops every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. On these nights the gym is open for anyone, man or woman, over the age of 15 looking for a pick up game. The gym opens at six o'clock, but people don't really start getting there until about six thirty. The cost to play is three dollars, but the money goes to keeping the gym open and the lights on.
"On Friday nights, just kids (under 15) are allowed to come and play, and sometimes the parents get out there and play with them just to help their kids out," says Ronnie Jordan, a long-time community member who is in charge of the facility.
The old building at Beech Glen also had a gym in it. It had been an elementary school, attended by many of the people who still reside in the community. "It was torn down in 2001 because it was a safety hazard," says Ronnie. "Youth league baseball games were played within 100 ft of the building, and kids were going over there to play around. It just wasn't safe."
The people in and around the community started getting the idea to build a community center in the place of the old school. "At first the county wanted to use the area for public housing, but that fell through because of lack of funding," says Ronnie.
The new community center at Beech Glen has a gym, a meeting hall, and a big dining place for group events or birthday parties. It was finally finished and opened in the fall of 2003.
As Jordon tells it, "Wayne Roberts (from Mars Hill) was the one hired to build the community center, and the county supplied the money. I was here the day he finished the building, and it was a good feeling knowing that now kids and adults in the community could come and play basketball again."
Ronnie Jordan is over all the activities at the community center. She is there every time the doors are open for adult basketball or bingo, and even meals for other people. She has been a part of the Beech Glen Community Center ever since the first day and the first night of basketball.
To get to the gym to play on ball nights you take 213 East until you come to a complete stop; you can either go right or left. Go left on Calvin Edney, and than you will take your second right after being on Calvin Edney for about one mile. You will stay on that road, and that will take you straight into the Beech Glen Community. The gym and community center will be straight in front of you, and a little league baseball field is also in the same complex.
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