Stretch those hamstrings, wash the cutoff jean shorts, fill the oxygen bottles, and order the plaster of paris for the full-body casts. In other words, make all the standard arrangements to play some pick-up basketball. The day is soon coming when the city’s new recreation center at Rock Chalk Park will be ready to host you and your buddies.

City officials have confirmed that the move-in process has begun this week at the 181,000 square-foot, eight-gym facility that is just northeast of the Sixth Street and South Lawrence Trafficway interchange. But City Manager David Corliss told me the city hasn’t yet decided on a date that the center will open its doors to the public.

“We still believe we’re going to be able to have classes there later in the month,” Corliss said.

Originally, the city had planned to have the center open this week, but as we reported a couple of weeks ago, those plans were pushed back by construction delays. Parks and Recreation director Ernie Shaw told me a few weeks ago there likely would be a soft opening in September and then a grand opening celebration sometime in early October. No dates have been set yet, but I’m guessing that is still the plan.

That will be a big celebration. I think the community is eager to get out and see the facility, which in addition to the eight gyms also has an indoor turf field, an indoor walking track, gymnastics, dance, fitness rooms, outdoor tennis courts and an extensive trail system. But perhaps one of the more important times for the Rock Chalk Park complex will come a couple of months later, in the dead of winter.

The city’s top recruiter of sporting events has confirmed to me that in December a delegation from the mega-youth sporting organization AAU will be in town to consider Lawrence as a site to host a future AAU Junior Olympic Games. Board members from AAU will be touring the Rock Chalk Park complex, with particular emphasis on the track and field facilities.

The tour is part of a process the city expects to go through to submit a formal bid to host a Junior Olympics. If the city could land the event, it would transform a lazy Lawrence summer into a major economic development boon. Bob Sanner, the sports marketing manager for the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the Olympics would be a six-day event that would bring 15,000 athletes and their parents and family to the city.

“It would be like Lawrence having multiple sell-out football games in a row,” Sanner said. “It would create that much revenue.”

The event recently took place in Des Moines, Iowa, and the 2015 Junior Olympics are set for July 29 through Aug. 8 in Hampton Roads, Va. I’m not sure that a site has been selected yet for 2016.

It is too early to say what Lawrence’s chances are of landing the big event. But the Rock Chalk Park track and field stadium was designed to be one of the top track and field stadiums in the country. And Lawrence definitely is on the radar screen of AAU leaders. The delegation will be touring the Rock Chalk Park facility in December because they’ll be in town for AAU’s National Cross Country Championships, which will be held at Rim Rock Farms north of Lawrence. That will be the largest AAU event the city has hosted since the mid-1980s, Sanner said.

The cross country national championships will be a nice piece of business for restaurants, hotels and others during what is traditionally a slow winter period. I don’t have estimates yet on how large the meet is expected to be in Lawrence, but the 2013 National Championships were held in Evans, Ga., and officials there estimated it would bring about 1,200 athletes, plus their families to the area. The folks in Evans, which is just outside of Augusta, Ga., were estimating an economic impact of about $350,000 for the community.

We’ll give you more details about what Lawrence has planned for the National Championship event as it gets closer.

In other news and notes from around town:

• There will be plenty of items to keep an eye on as the Rock Chalk Park recreation center opens. I’m sure the city will be in the running for multiple tournaments and events. But it also will be worth keeping an eye on our neighbors to the east. If you have followed the news in Kansas City, you know that quite a debate is going on right now about whether to convert Kemper Arena into a major youth sports complex. A private development group has proposed an approximately $20 million renovation of the facility. The group is proposing 12 basketball courts, the “area’s largest indoor running track,” and space for indoor soccer, lacrosse, rugby, volleyball, boxing, martial arts, rowing and bicycling clubs. The group is projecting the facility would attract 1,000 kids per night and would draw tournaments that would bring 500,000 visitors a year to the facility.

The proposal is competing with a plan from the American Royal, which wants to tear down Kemper and build an events center that would complement American Royal activities. I don’t understand Kansas City politics (I’m waiting for the ghost of Tom Pendergast to come and explain it to me), but media reports indicate the youth fieldhouse has some support among Kansas City council members and some investors in the area. The fieldhouse proposal is asking for less money than the American Royal, and some preservationists are concerned about tearing down Kemper Arena.

I don’t know how any of this will turn out, but it does seem clear that Lawrence has entered a competitive industry. Proposals to build youth sports complexes to try and attract youth sporting tournaments are popping up in multiple locations. A plan to build a large youth sports fieldhouse in Wichita won a major round of approval last month.

The Wichita Eagle reported that the Wichita City Council unanimously approved a development agreement for what is expected to be a $120 million sports-themed park at K-96 and Greenwich in Wichita. The anchor tenant for that development will be GoodSports Fieldhouse, a 65,000 square-foot building that will have 12 full-sized basketball courts and 24 volleyball courts. It intends to go after regional and national youth tournaments for basketball, volleyball, indoor soccer, wrestling and other sports. That, of course, is also what Lawrence officials plan to do with Rock Chalk Park. The Wichita center is projected to draw 300,000 visitors per year.

Lawrence is beating both of these projects to the punch. The Wichita fieldhouse likely won’t be open until early 2016. But the Wichita one will be interesting to watch. Reports indicate it already has a commitment for a 150-room hotel that will be adjacent to the fieldhouse. The Rock Chalk Park area is still struggling to attract the retail and hotel development that is hoped for in the area, although private developers recently have hired a new brokerage firm to better market the commercial area near Rock Chalk.

Apparently, though, Wichita has more pull at the Kansas Statehouse than Lawrence does. The area surrounding the Wichita fieldhouse has been designated as a STAR bond area by the state. That means the sales taxes collected by businesses in the district can be used directly to fund the development of entertainment and tourism areas in the district. STAR bonds are a powerful incentive. They played a major role in the development around the NASCAR track in Wyandotte County. Local officials did not pursue STAR bonds as part of the Rock Chalk Park project.

• Speaking of Wichita, a Wichita-based marketing firm has made an interesting finding: The two best-known brand names in Kansas are both based in Lawrence. They’re the Kansas Jayhawks and Free State Beer.

The Wichita-based firm RSA Marketing Services released the findings of its first Kansas Brand Power consumer survey. The firm asked more than 500 Kansans to name the brand they believe is most well known across the state. The Jayhawk brand took the top spot, and was the only university mascot to make the top 10. Perhaps surprising to some is that Free State beer took the No. 2 spot. The ranking highlights just how important The Free State Brewing Co. has become in Lawrence’s economy. I think some people still think of the company as just the iconic brewpub in downtown Lawrence. That is how it has built its name over the years, but since 2010 the company has been bottling its beer. It is now in every Kansas county that has a liquor store, and has started to sell in some adjacent states as well. The strength of its brand certainly gives the company some intriguing growth possibilities. And since the beer is actually brewed, bottled and produced all in Lawrence, that creates some exciting possibilities for Lawrence too.

As for the complete list of best-known Kansas brands, here you go:

1. KU Jayhawks

2. Free State Beer

3. Pizza Hut

4. Coleman

5. Boulevard Beer

6. Sprint

7. Russell Stover

8. Garmin

9. Dillons

10. Koch Industries.

Coleman and Pizza Hut were founded in Kansas and used to have their headquarters here, but no longer do. Boulevard is based in Kansas City, Mo., but if you drink enough of Boulevard’s product, state lines get a little fuzzy.

This list isn’t highly scientific, but it is interesting. You can create your own. As for me, I think I’ll set out to have a classic Kansas weekend. I’ll watch the Jayhawks on Saturday night, consume some Free State Beer and Pizza Hut pizza. Then I’ll likely be asked to sleep in a Coleman tent in the backyard after a certain someone in my house has decided I’ve had too much Free State beer and Pizza Hut pizza.