After 50 years, Rockdale will open the doors to a new gymnasium.

The new gymnasium was named after former Rockdale basketball coach Cleveland Stroud in a ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday attended by current students, former Rockdale County High School students, and former RCHS coaches. It many ways, it was a trip down memory lane as much as a look at the future of Bulldogs athletics. 

Superintendent Rich Autry said of the legendary Coach and Councilman Stroud, that no one better epitomized the traits of character, integrity, honesty.

Stroud thanked his coworkers, city councilmen, Progressive Club, his students, his family and most of all his wife Helen Flanigan Stroud for “sharing me with my second family, my players.” He also thanked his players. “No coach is greater than his players,” he said. He thanked Doug Sharp for having the fortitude to hire the first black coach for RCHS.

“I think the first words you would say when you walk in (the gym) is, ‘It’s amazing,’” Rockdale principal Georgi Nour said. “What a great opportunity it is for our students who are going to have to compete in an amazing, state of the art facility.”

Along with the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funded new gym, Rockdale also has a new field house for its football team, which shares the building with the JROTC.

The old gym is being converted to a ninth-grade academy with two science areas and an administrative space.