After eight days of extensive work, Sparty is as good as new.

For more than a week the statue has been power-washed, sand-blasted, appoxied and filled-in to return it to its natural luster.

The restoration was complete Wednesday.

“We’ve been working on him for eight days now,” said MSU grounds worker Jim Peterson. “Tonight we are all finished.”

Constructed in the 1940s out of terra cotta, Sparty has started showing signs of his age with structural cracking.

Sparty is believed to be the world’s largest free standing ceramic statue.

Alumnus and ceramics instructor, Curt LaCross, was recruited to help refurbish the statue.

“Tonight we are done, we just have to put a clear coat on,” LaCross said. “It’s a low UV protector that will have the sun reflect off the clay molecules instead of the finishing.”

The coating will also serve as an anti-Sparty defense said LaCross, who has helped work on the statue since 1999.

“It’s an anti-graffiti clear coat,” he said. “Not only will it be UV protection but also protection from rival schools.”

Brandon Bennett