Crown jewel of CUNYAC gets upgrade

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Last season was one to remember for the Lehman Lightning men’s and women’s basketball programs.

After rolling through their respective regular seasons, both teams wound up winning the City University of New York athletic Conference (CUNYAC) regular-season titles with each earning the top seed for the CUNYAC Tournament.

But while the men’s team unexpectedly got bounced in the tournament semifinals, coach Eric Harrison’s women’s team ended a nine-year drought with their first tournament title since 2007 and earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

So what do you get for a pair of strong programs that did so much for the school this past season? Why, upgrades to their home court, of course, and that’s what Lehman is in the midst of doing right now as The APEX, considered the crown jewel of the CUNYAC, is getting its’ extreme makeover.

In the past, when you entered The APEX, you were greeted by a gleaming bright gym with excellent sightlines but were forced to watch games from hard wooden planks. But now those planks are a thing of the past as they have been replaced with what the school calls “molded bleacher seating.”

“We tore out the old bleachers, including all the old steel support beneath them, on both sides of the court,” Lehman Sports Information Director Lenn Margolis said during a recent tour of the newly-refurbished APEX. “This was a long-range plan, something [Lehman Director of Athletics] Dr. [Martin] Zwiren had wanted to do for a long time now and we were finally able to get it done this year.”

The makeover includes the new seating, which now comes adorned in Lehman blue, along with a new media platform above the stands and safety end closure curtains which hide the underside of the stands and come with the Lehman Lightning logo affixed to it.

“We can now also accommodate handicap seating as well in here where the first row can get pushed back so we can now fit wheelchairs,” Margolis said of the gym that has a seating capacity of 1,000. “It really is a better look to the place. It gives it a little more collegial feel to the gym than we had before when we just had the wooden planks. And surprisingly it didn’t take long to do it all. There was a whole crew in here and after demolition, to install the whole thing it took about a week or two.”

It’s a project a long time in coming that has finally been realized by the school.

“This is 20 years in the making,” Dr. Zwiren said. “We strive to improve and upgrade all of the facilities. The APEX and South Field are part of the experience that we offer to our student athletes and these improvements have a direct correlation to our recruiting efforts. We want the students to come to Lehman as well as be successful when they get here.”

One additional thing the new stands will allow both the men’s and women’s basketball teams to do is expand their practices. With the old stationary stands, there was no room for additional baskets on the court. That is not the case after the renovations.

“In the past, before the renovations, you couldn’t push the old bleachers back,” Margolis said. “But now you can push them back and coaches will be able to bring out two or three portable baskets which will help them during practice. So you’ll have a lot more baskets for the guys and women to shoot at.”

Not surprisingly, both Harrison and men’s coach Steve Schulman are ecstatic about the changes at the APEX.

“I’m really excited when I look at the changes that were made to the APEX gym,” Schulman said. “This looks awesome. This will enable us to have some flexibility with practice. We can now bring in additional baskets. The APEX is already one of the best facilities in the conference and this just makes it better. I’m pumped just being in here now. I can’t wait for the home opener next year.”

Harrison, who became the all-time winningest coach in CUNYAC women’s basketball history this past season, was also stoked about the upgrades to his home court.

“I’m pretty excited. The new bleachers are a definite improvement,” Harrison said. “This will be something not only for the players but for the fans. How could you not be excited about playing in this facility?”

There is more to come this summer in terms of improvements for the APEX when the court itself will get a facelift to all but complete the makeover.

“We’re going to redo the floor after the summer league and after the camps so we’re looking at early August for that,” Margolis said. “We’ll do a light sanding but we’re not going to change any graphics on the floor.”

The final piece of the makeover won’t come until November, when the basketball season gets underway, but it has nothing to do with the APEX’s structure. It’s more cosmetic yet very important to the program.

“We’ll also be adding another banner,” Margolis said, referring to the one the women will add for reaching the NCAA Tournament this past season. “The banner will be raised in a game against CCNY in November.

And when it does the facelift for the APEX will finally be complete, just in time for another exciting season for Lehman basketball.

CUNYAC, Lehman College, APEX, Sean Brennan

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