Student-Athletes at Olentangy Liberty High School were welcomed to a surprise in the form of a redesigned Athletic Wing at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year. 

Liberty’s Athletic Director, Darin Meeker, has been fulfilling his plan over the past years to bring life into our Athletic Wing. But it didn’t come without some complications. The arrival of COVID-19 and the rebranding of our school’s logos pushed the completion date of the first phase further away. 

“We were supposed to actually have this done at the beginning of last school year but it was pushed back of course due to COVID-19,” said Meeker. “ We had everything finished but then they told us to hold off because of the rebranding.” 

Another dilemma they faced was determining not only who would be in the pictures, but finding pictures in general that would fit the dimensions was a whole different struggle.

“We wanted to make sure that we honor the past the best that we could,” said Meeker. “The issue became getting high quality pictures that could fit the dimensions. We reached out to HR Imaging, The Columbus Dispatch and we even solicited some parents to get images.”

Although most of the Athletes pictured went on to play their respective sports in college, Meeker wants it to be known that was not a part of their ‘criteria’ to be featured in the photos. 

“For example, the photo chosen for Boys Volleyball is of Cole Young ‘21 who went on to play Volleyball at Ohio State. But the picture chosen of the Boys Soccer team is a picture of the boys huddled together during their run to the State Championship. ” said Meeker. 

Meeker is working on a design for a logo that will be placed above the doors to the entrance of the athletic wing. It will read “Hallway of Champions”.

The final phase of the plan is to modernize our Hall of Fame. This will consist of a new electronic kiosk on the outside wall of the health rooms across from the All-Ohio wall . It will be an interactive screen where students and their families can click through to see different teams, coaches and players of the past. There is no exact completion date but they are hopeful for a finishing date in the spring of 2022.

“We wanted the Hall of Fame to be as modern as possible.” said Liberty’s Assistant Athletic Director, Tanner Gillum. “We want to honor the past and we think that this is the best way possible.”