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It's been a long time coming for Martins Ferry High School.
After being denied by the voters several times, the new campus-style school buildings opened up Friday for students to resume classes and tonight the athletic department gets into the act.
The brand-new high school gymnasium will open its doors for its first game this evening when Linsly visits the Purple Riders.
"We're pleased with the way things turned out here," said Ferry athletic director Dave Bruney. "Not only with the athletic facilities, but also the academic part of the building. It exceeded our expectations much like the Pro-Grass (football) field did in the fall."
The Martins Ferry Purple Riders own one of the proudest and richest athletic traditions of any school not only in Belmont County, but the entire OVAC for that matter. The renovation of the football field, new gymnasium and this spring the Purple Riders will debut an all-weather track and brand-new baseball and softball fields.
Along with the main gymnasium, there's also a second gym in the school, which will be utilized for junior high events and could make practice schedules much easier to deal with at certain times of the year.
Several weeks ago when Martins Ferry's boys basketball team played its final game on The Stage, head coach Jeff Sabatino talked about how emotional his players were to bid farewell to the old house, which they went 40-5 in over the last four-plus seasons, but he was smiling widely recently while looking over the new gym.
"This is one of the finest gyms I've ever seen," Sabatino said. "Not only from a functional standpoint, but also from a logistical standpoint. We can get so many more repetitions now and the length of the floor should help us. It's going to take some getting used to, but down the road this is going to make a big difference for the basketball program at Martins Ferry."
While no one will soon forget all of the history in the old Rider gym, but Sabatino and company are anxious to start a new chapter.
"We want to make our own history," Sabatino said. "I told our kids that gym belongs to the ages and all of the great players that came through, but this gym belongs to us. We can put our foot and finger print all over this. I hope I don't drop dead anytime soon because this is a really good time to be a Martins Ferry Purple Rider, and that's not a cliche."
The Purple Riders' boys basketball team -- which currently owns a 6-4 record -- doesn't have a cupcake coming to town in Linsly. The Cadets are 5-0 on the season.
"Linsly is a worthy opponent to open this gym with," Bruney said. "I hope everyone comes out and enjoys the new facility and takes a look to see the kinds of facilities our kids have now."
Neither the boys or girls had practiced in the new gym because the school hadn't officially been turned over to the district until Friday morning. However, the boys team had a shootaround before it departed for Indian Creek Friday night.
The girls will begin leaving their history on the new gym Jan. 17 when St. Clairsville comes calling.
Head girls coach Dave Reasbeck -- who shined as a player on The Stage -- is also looking forward to getting his chance to leaving his team's mark.
"We've got everything we could want here," Reasbeck said. "A lot of great players had great games on The Stage, but like everything else, it grew old. This helps us with the bigger floor and really helps us for the way we play."
Bruney was quite honest when he described the facilities that Riders had become accustomed to using.
"I think we went from a school, which had probably sub-par facilities for the past 20 years," Bruney offered. "We were deteriorating, but now I would think our facilities would match anyone's in the state."
The main gymnasium is named Tolbert Gymnasium in honor of a the Tolbert Family, who donated the gymnasium. The family will be recognized Saturday night prior to the game.
"We certainly thank the Tolbert family for their benevolence on behalf of the students in the Martins Ferry City School District," Bruney continued.
The gym seats 1,350 people and includes a reserved seat section on the home side. It features actual seats on that side of the gym and just bleacher-style seating on the other side. Behind the scoring table and benches is where both student sections as well as visiting adults will sit. The opposite side is for Martins Ferry adults.
"We've probably only got about 70-80 more seats than our old gym, but this is certainly more fan friendly," Bruney said.
Sabatino was struck by the slighly off-colored Purple that was used and the entire design of the gym, which features a mural of a Rider on the wall, two horseshoes on the floor and Martins Ferry Purple Riders across midcourt.
"This is one of the prettiest gyms I've ever been in," Sabatino said. "I don't how they did the mural, but it becomes magnificent because of its immenseness. I wouldn't have changed a thing because this is perfect. For a second gym, our middle school gym is incredible."
The Riders' championship banners haven't been hung on the wall just yet, but will be placed in time, according to Bruney.
The actual seats will be reserved seats in 2008-09 and fans will have the opportunity to pick their seat, but for the remainder of this season for both boys and girls, the seats are all being considered general admission.
"We'll allow people to look them over and at the end of the school year, they can tells us what row and what seat they like," Bruney said. "This year, we're going to allow all adults to sit on that side if they wish."
The facility could warrant hosting a tournament of some sort, but according to Bruney, there are a lot of logistics that are involved in the selection.
"Much like our football field, we're limited geographically," Bruney said. "If people are willing to travel a little bit farther, we think they would be putting themselves into one of the finest high school facilities in the state."
As for the aforementioned track and fields, Bruney says they will be done in plenty of time to open the season on those facilities this spring.
"Once the weather breaks, we're able to get the fences up and get those completed," Bruney said. "Everything's been sodded and they did a great job on the infields. At the track, the concession building and restrooms are being finished, and we'll be getting that fenced in and it should be up and ready to go this spring."
Once again, Sabatino said what every student, teacher, employee and resident of Martins Ferry was thinking, "It's a great time to be a Martins Ferry Purple Rider."
Staskey can be reached at s’>sstaskey@timesleaderonline.com’>sstaskey@timesleaderonline.com