The Best Damn Floors in the World
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April 10, 2009
Hello Loyal Readers, I have finally succumbed to peer pressure, and joined Twitter – mainly because, I guess, all the Cool Kids are doing it. I can be found at johnubacon, but I promise not to waste precious characters describing my trips to the podiatrists. (I’ve never been to one, but I’ll bet it’s pretty boring, and possibly revolting.) Thanks again for reading – and listening. -John The Best Damn Floors in the World Michigan and Michigan State both exceeded expectations in this year’s NCAA tournament, and the Detroit Pistons have been among the NBA’s elite teams for almost a decade. But the state’s best basketball squad is not a bunch of abnormally tall teenagers with super-human ball-handling skills. No, it’s a bunch of middle-aged workers up in tiny Dollar Bay, Michigan, at the tip of the Upper Peninsula. If they have six packs, they’re on ice. Their passion is hockey, not hoops – but they just happen to make the best basketball floors in the world. William Horner started his company in 1891 -- the same year James B. Naismith invented basketball. Horner's genius was figuring out how to mass-produce inter-changable tongue-and-groove boards in the factory, instead of making far more expensive custom boards on site. If you have a hardwood floor in your home, you have William Horner to thank. Horner’s hard maple floors are as sturdy and resilient as the men who make them. They’ve been snapped up by 14 NBA teams, over a thousand colleges and too many schools to count. Basketballs bounce off Horner floors in Pakistan and Pontiac, Tokyo and Tupelo, Barcelona and Beijing. They’ve built them for the Olympics, every NBA All Star game since 1983, and 20 NCAA Final Fours. When the Spartans won their national title in 2000, they won it on a Horner floor, which they bought, and moved to the Breslin Center. [CUT?] When the cameraman pulls in for a close-up, you might watch the sweat dripping off the star forward’s face, but these guys examine the floor joints. They don’t cheer for their team to triumph – they’d rather watch the Red Wings -- they cheer for their floor to emerge unscathed. It takes sixty-five employees two months to produce a Horner basketball floor. They start with the best wood, Acer Sacch-AR-um, better known as sugar maple or hard maple. The UP’s short growing seasons create nice tight rings, which makes the wood perfect for bowling pins, billiard cues, guitar necks—and hardwood floors. The final product is so smooth and beautiful, the workers will tell you it breaks their hearts to have to paint them. Once the floor leaves the shop, it’s at the mercy of truck drivers, longshoremen and arena crewmen. Just before the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, a Forum crew member flipped the switch to lower their scoreboard. While it descended, the guy at the switch got distracted—until the two-ton scoreboard smashed through the floor, turning center court into a veritable bouquet of colorful splinters. Fortunately, Horner had a few extra panels on hand for just such an emergency. They painted, sealed and dried them under powerful fans, then installed them in time for Michael Jordan to make his Olympic debut. After Horner’s floors finish their weekend in the sun, Horner sells them to thrifty colleges – and, one time, to a free-spending woman in Utah. Bill Gappy, Horner’s sales director, thought he’d heard it all, until a woman in Salt Lake City contacted him to buy the NBA All-Star floor. Gappy thought she was pulling his leg, right up to the moment she wrote a check at half-time for $80,000. Her divorce settlement easily covered the cost of the floor, plus the labor to re-fit the unpainted panels for her palatial living room, the lanes for her two racquetball courts and the center logo for her rec room. Bastian’s marriage may have broken up, but her Horner floor remains rock solid. Knock on wood.
Copyright © 2009, Michigan Radio
Great article.
Semi-related question: did Horner come up with the idea to use stadiums for combination hockey-basketball purposes? Horner's professional and personal interests seem to naturally lead him to think about this issue.
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Hello Dan Singer,
Thanks for your kind words. A fun story to report, write and deliver.
And good question. So good, I had to call Horner again to find out. Chris Raymond told me they did not come up with the idea (though, you're right, would have been a natural) but without their portable floors, the idea would have been impossible. So, half a cigar, anyway.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the good question.
-John
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Say it isn't so Mr. Bacon...
"I have finally succumbed to peer pressure, and joined Twitter – mainly because, I guess, all the Cool Kids are doing it."
Peer pressure is such a b#!@* With that rationale, next you'll be writing your articles in: R U LOL CYA ROFL THX, etc.
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I know, I know.
It has come to this.
As if the emailing, blogging, texting and twittering weren't enough, I fear I will start drawing little hearts over my i's in the style of junior high girls writing in paperback yearbooks.
The apocalypse is surely upon us.
But don't say I didn't warn you.
-JUB
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