New scoreboards for Oceanside H.S.

Oceanside High School is replacing three scoreboards — possibly with money from Nassau County.

The three scoreboards — one in the gym, one at the softball field and one at the baseball field — are broken, according to Jeff Risener, the Oceanside school district’s director of physical education, health and interscholastic athletics. The district is trying to get a $20,000 grant from the Nassau County Community Revitalization Program to pay for these new scoreboards. Nassau County Legislator Laura Curran submitted the application last week.

“Obviously high schools are not just for the students,” said Curran. “They’re really a central part for the community. If we can give something like a scoreboard, it really does benefit the whole community.”

Risener said that outside scoreboards are 15 years old and it is too costly to continue to repair them.

As for the scoreboard in the gym, the company that repairs and maintains the scoreboards, Long Island Gym Equipment, has made temporary repairs to keep it running but it still go down anytime. “The shot clock is 20 years old and the [gym] scoreboard is 20 years old,” said Risener. “Any electronics go down, they will be unrepairable. So it’s time.” (A shot clock keeps track of the time a player can have the ball before they shoot in basketball.)

Long Island Gym Equipment will also supply the new scoreboards, which have already been ordered, because it will take some time for them to come in. The school wants to have the outdoors scoreboards installed before the spring season, which starts on March 7, and the gym scoreboard ready for the basketball season, which starts on Nov. 16.

“The company repair people… said the mother board computer mechanisms inside are beyond repair,” said Risener of the gym scoreboard. “And that is engine behind the scoreboard.” He added that the console inside the scoreboard has died, and the company that makes it, Daktronics, does not even make replacement parts that old anymore.

Grant approval from the county legislature could take a couple of months, according to Curran. If the grant does not go through, Oceanside Schools will have to pay for the new scoreboards with money from the $395,000 Inter-fund Transfer to Capital allocation.