Last Night At A-Game With Alliance Volleyball

A-Game

Thursday night was the last night, ever, for A-Game Sportsplex. The dark, foreboding sky outside certainly fit the gloomy, hollow building.

But, on the volleyball courts where the Alliance Volleyball Club athletes and their parents played one last round of games, it was all light. On the courts, anyway.

The club set its eyes on the future, even while the present bummed them out plenty. Things, they say, are bright. They are ready to move on, they say, to somewhere they are wanted. Somewhere that deserves their business, and the business they bring to surrounding hotels, restaurants and shops.

After announcing this week that its owners and tenants reached an agreement in their ongoing legal situation, the building is now closed for good. It will be renovated and reconstructed, rumors say, as a regional headquarters for Mars, Inc.  by AL Neyer of Ohio.

As for Alliance, the club will be temporarily using courts at Currey Ingram Academy, Harpeth Hall, Ensworth and Quest Sports Center.

If the future was very much on everyone’s mind, the past was right there in everyone’s face, with unstocked soda machines, a half-open snack bar, boxes filled up with stray equipment, out-of-order toilets and  a barred-up front desk. The place, quite frankly, did not look like it was kept in very good shape.

But:

“It is about the club, the athletes and the parents,” Mike Butler, parent of Emma, a sophomore at Franklin High School, said. “It is not so much the building as it is the club. There are life-long relationships that form here because we spend all of our time together.”

 

But, still. Leaving is hard:

“It is tough,”John Briggs, president of Alliance’s Board of Directors, said. “We have been here for six and a half years. But we are moving on. The nice part for us is we have a very good business model, we are a very good tenant. I am very confident that we will get what we want moving forward. Our challenge is needing all this space, and we are working hard to get it.”

As for the man who has been on the front lines of their struggle all along, Jeff Wismer takes the high road, the longview and has high hopes for the future:

“We have good options that we are excited about long-term, and wish the best of luck to whoever is moving in here after us,” he said.

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