Five years after work began, the public got its first glimpse at the multi-million dollar renovation of Warren Central High School’s gym during a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a volleyball match last week.

The first reactions have been positive. The place is well-lit, and a glass wall at the south end is a unique and interesting feature.

The second reaction is, typically, “What on Earth is THAT!?”

Five support beams rise from the floor to the ceiling along the east sideline, in front of the visitor’s bleachers. They are located 4 1/2 feet from the basketball sideline. Spaced approximately 15 feet apart, they run the length of the court.

While it’s another unique feature that will certainly give the gym some quirkiness, it’s also an obvious hazard that makes you wonder whether the architects were designing a gym or the Temple of Doom.

“The pillars should be fine because they’re outside our playing area,” said Warren Central volleyball player Ellie Henderson, whose sport uses a smaller court than basketball. “But it’s a good thing they’re padded because someone will probably run into them.”

The posts are indeed padded, but at a glance, it seems like it’s in the same way that a SAFER barrier at a NASCAR track pads the wall. It’ll save your life if you hit them, but there’s still a steel I-beam underneath and it’s going to hurt.

The beams also turn sections of the visitors’ bleachers into obstructed-view seats.

“I don’t like it,” Warren Central basketball player Garrett Orgas said. “For one thing, it’s going to block viewers so people are going to have to move and it’s going to get crowded. And then if we go for a loose ball we’re going to die if we hit the pole. I’m not trying to bust my head.”

The pillars were incorporated into the gym’s redesign to save money. Vicksburg Warren School District associate superintendent Eric Green, who was Warren Central’s principal when the project started in 2018, said including the pillars cost $500,000 less than the initial design that removed them.

Even as part of a larger construction project that cost nearly $30 million, that’s not an insignificant amount of money. Hopefully, the savings went toward other areas, such as the new locker rooms and concession stands.

And, to be fair, Green noted that many gyms have similar hazards. At some older gyms, brick walls with thin pads are about as far from the end line as the Warren Central pillars are from the sideline. Other gyms have bleachers that are even closer to the sideline than the posts are.

Warren Central’s original gym had solid wood benches built into the home stands and those sat less than 5 feet from the sideline. Fans in the front row of the visitors’ bleachers often had to tuck their feet in when players inbounded the basketball near them.

“Could a kid run into them? Yeah, they might,” Green said. “But I don’t foresee it being a hazard. The way that we’ve got them designed and padded, that’s pretty standard because there are other gyms that have interior pillars.”

There might be ways to make the pillars safer. Another rounded pad around the base, similar to a football goal post, could slow down or deflect runaway players before they become a bug on a windshield.

It appears, however, that the pillars will be a part of our basketball experience for the next 40 years until the next renovation occurs, so we might as well embrace them and have some fun.

Perhaps every time a player hits them we can paint a little stick figure on the pads, the way fighter pilots celebrate a combat victory. A “clink” sound effect, like you hear when a hockey puck hits the post, could be played over the PA system.

We should definitely come up with a cool nickname for them, the same as other famous stadium features like Boston’s Green Monster or Boise State’s blue Smurf Turf.

We could call Warren Central’s posts the Widowmakers. Maybe go with a Viking theme and name them Mjolnir, after Thor’s hammer that can smash anything in its path.

Perhaps a goofy pop culture reference like the Cenas, since some of the fans on that side of the gym will surely be saying they can’t see the action on the court.

Alliteration always works, so “Poles of Pain” or “Pillars of Peril” sounds catchy.

We’ll have to workshop it and see what sticks. For better or for worse, these things are ours and they’re here to stay.

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Ernest Bowker is the sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com