It’s official: Maples Pavilion will get a new floor as part of its renovation this year (Farm Report, November/December). The old floor’s four layers of crisscrossing beams, a design unique in major college athletics, make it unusually bouncy. An informal survey by the San Jose Mercury News last winter found that Stanford basketball players had sustained more than their share of stress-related injuries, and questioned whether the floor could be the cause. Men’s head coach Mike Montgomery recently told the paper that was “nonsense,” but that “the question has been raised, and we can’t afford to have it out there.” Bottom line: in a $30 million renovation, it’s worth paying $400,000 for a new floor. Otherwise, Montgomery said, “it’s like redoing your house and leaving the same paint.”
