By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald
Fire has the ability to destroy or to refine.
In the case of St. Augustine High School, a one-alarm fire last Thanksgiving Day that damaged the school’s second-floor gymnasium – with most of the damage coming as a result of water used to extinguish the flames – has been transformed into multiple rays of hope.
In a celebratory announcement on March 31, LG Electronics USA donated $150,000 to St. Augustine for an endowed scholarship fund and pledged to provide OLED televisions, appliances and air purification equipment for the school of 540 students.
In addition, St. Augustine president Aulston Taylor unveiled artist’s renderings of a newly renovated and expanded athletics complex – the Watson Jones Health and Wellness Center, named after one of the school’s legendary basketball coaches – which will add a third floor for student wellness activities, private counseling and film studies.
As Taylor gushed over plans for the luxurious new locker rooms, weight room and LG-equipped laundry room, he apologized to several St. Aug seniors who attended the announcement ceremony.
“Some of our seniors are going to hate me, and our underclassmen are going to love me,” Taylor said, laughing. “This is what a locker room should look like for our young men. It’s no more halfway stuff. We’re going all out.”
The basketball court will be named after long-time basketball coach Bernard Griffith, and the gym’s walls will bear oversized portraits of St. Augustine’s athletic and coaching greats, such as coaches Eddie Flint and Otis Washington, along with uplifting quotes attributed to them.
“We have not done a great job of paying respect and homage to the luminaries of our school, and so we’re going to change that with our real estate,” Taylor said. “We’re going to find ways to respect the folks who made this amazing school what it is by way of their reputation. And so we’re going to now start seeing pictures and content and quotes from those who have paved the way. We are going to find ways to tell the beautiful story of what they meant to the school and how our students need to respect everything that they’ve done and go beyond their accolades.”
The $150,000 from LG Electronics USA – in addition to establishing the LG “Life’s Good” Scholarship Fund – will help rebuild the school’s basketball court, which was just 72 hours from completion when the fire broke out in 2021. The water that put out the fire caused the floor to buckle.
Construction of the athletic complex should be completed by the end of 2023, said Mel Cordier, St. Augustine’s director of communications and marketing.
“The third floor needs to be built, and everything else in the gymnasium will be renovated.”
Since the gym was not available for the recently completed basketball season, the Purple Knights practiced and played all their games on the road, getting game and practice availability at Southern University New Orleans, Dillard University and McDonogh 35 High School.
Peggy Ang, senior vice president of marketing for LG, said her company was proud to partner with St. Augustine because of its proven commitment to developing young men. She said St. Augustine came onto the company’s radar through officials from the NCAA (sponsors of the Final Four), Turner Sports and CBS Sports.
“We wanted to help them continue their tradition of inspiring students to succeed in the classroom and on the field of play,” she said.
Avery Johnson, who graduated from St. Augustine in 1983 and played and coached in the NBA, said he was thrilled to see the improvements jump from the drawing board to action items. He said they would inspire students to reach deeper and achieve more.
Johnson said his father transferred him from a public school to St. Augustine as a sophomore.
“I want to say, ‘Thank you, Dad, for forcing me to attend school here at St. Augustine High School, because it was three of the best years of my life,’” Johnson said. “The discipline, the way it shaped my character, the way we were taught to serve greater humanity. I have taken St. Augustine High School everywhere I’ve gone – all around the world.”
Taylor said the new athletics complex would have a unified space for all of the school’s athletic trophies, as well as an elevator. He singled out St. Augustine 1981 graduate Stephen Pepin, who uses a wheelchair, for coming to nearly every basketball game over the last 20 to 30 years.
Taylor said Pepin has been carried up the 25 steps by other St. Aug alumni so that he can see the games.
“My friends are getting older, and when we go to the games, it’s harder to get 50- and 60-year-old men to carry you up,” Pepin said. “Once upon a time, I knew all the football players, and they carried me up. This is a relief, because I was always afraid of somebody getting injured – not myself, but other people pulling me up.”
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Originally Appeared Here