High school basketball returns to Veterans Memorial Coliseum at Marion County Fairgrounds

MARION — They've all grown up playing basketball, but Saturday offered a different perspective.

"It’s definitely different shooting at the rims with the depth. I think it’s fun and a good time. It’s definitely neat to play on," River Valley All-Ohioan Carson Smith said. "Once I got a couple shots in it was easier to shoot on. At the beginning, it was rough."

For the first time in at least 25 years, high school basketball was played at Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the Marion County Fairgrounds as local organizers held the first Coliseum Basketball Tip-Off all day at the venerable facility.

It was a hit with the players, and by the constant church of fans throughout the day, it was a hit with the public.

All five high schools in Marion County showcased their boys and girls varsity basketball teams against nearby, out-of-county squads in two-quarter preview games. Marion County's Special Olympics hoops team took on Wyandot County to kickoff the event that started Saturday morning and played into the evening.

"It was actually crazy," Pleasant's Emerson Williams said. "I’ve never played in front of this many people other than for tournaments. It was cool because people have been playing here for a really long time."

The first high school basketball game at the coliseum was played between Marion Harding and Galion in the winter of 1950. From that date through the mid 1980s, hundreds of high school regular season and tournament games were played in the coliseum.

"As a player it was fun because it was a home away from home ," said Steve Freshour, a 1974 Pleasant grad who went on to be the head coach at River Valley and his alma matter and who now assists at Elgin.

"We didn’t play in any of the Marion County gyms when I was in high school," he continued. "Every Marion County contest was here, and we would always come up here to practice one day a week when we were going to play on the weekend. We started some tournaments here as well, so we spent a good chunk of our season here.

"Back then when we were in high school, it was the Pleasant-Ridgedale rivalry. There were nights when this place was just packed. It was loud. It was a lot of fun."

Roger Jury remembers when the coliseum was a basketball destination for area hoops aficionados.

"I used to live up the road even though I went to Wynford," the former Cardington and Marion Harding boys basketball coach said, now the current boys coach at Hopewell-Loudon. "My dad used to bring me to the sectional tournaments here every year. We saw the real Globetrotters play here. I saw the Bucketeers play here. I saw the Cleveland Browns football guys play the Marion-area all-stars."

Now Jury has the floor all those greats played on.

About 14 years ago he was telling a friend he'd love to get an old court to lay inside his barn, even mentioning the old coliseum court that was famous for its dead spots all over the floor.

"(The friend) was working in the area over by Edison, the Mount Gilead suburb, and (he found) it was actually in a barn," Jury said. "I coached at Cardington forever, so (the floor's owner) knew I was a coach and I wasn't going to resell it for flooring or anything like that or make money off it. He gave it to me at a decent price, and we still have it today. He'd had it for a while I guess. I was happy to get it."

Jury said the dead spots are still there and that's perfect for ballhandling drills because of it.

"You have to dribble harder and it makes you work out harder. It's fantastic," he said.

Dead spots and tricky ridges weren't the case Saturday. The court was from this season's NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, made special for Chicago's United Center for the Midwest Regional that was won by national champion Kansas. The baskets were also college-grade stuff, coming from Owens Community College in northwest Ohio.

"Shooting definitely came into play for us because it was hard to adjust to no background and just this big space. It was fun," Williams said. "It seems so much bigger, especially because there’s no enclosure on the back of the baskets. It feels like you have to shoot completely different."

That was the fun and the challenge. It was basketball unlike anything they play during the season in high school gyms.

"Every other year we try to play at the Cavs before a game, which we did last year," Jury said. "It's nice to come down to a nice coliseum that's not too far away. It's like the old barn (the Ohio State Fairgrounds Coliseum) at the district. You'd have great teams down there shooting airballs with the open background. It was neat to look off and see a bunch of seats (behind the basket) and a big scoreboard overhead. It's great."

Freshour was one of the few in the coliseum on Saturday who can say he played and was a head coach in the facility.

"It’s the atmosphere that is different from being in a gym," Freshour said. "Trying to communicate is a challenge. There was a communication issue at times because of the space and the echoes and the number of people who could be here."

By the late 1980s and into the 1990s, high school basketball games became scarce at the coliseum. A holiday tournament in the mid-90s is thought to be the last games played in the arena.

Tom Kenney and several Marion-area business figures stepped up to lease the floor for the event, spending more than a year planning for the Tip-Off. To add to the atmosphere, there was plenty of music during stoppages and between games as well as progressive shooting contests for new vehicles ― but no one hit the layup, free throw, 3-pointer and half-court shot needed to win. Ohio State men's basketball starter Zed Key made an appearance as well.

"It was a neat idea. To be able to include all the county schools and bring in some nearby rivals, it’s neat," Freshour said. "It gives the kids a chance to experience this."

And it gave girls the chance to play in what was once north central Ohio's showplace for basketball. Saturday's preview games are believed to be the first high school girls basketball played at the fairgrounds.

"Our coaches told us that and I was shocked," Williams said. "It’s cool to be one of the first female athletes to be on here."

Whether more basketball will be held in the 72-year-old facility is to be determined, but at least for one November day, it was back.

"This place is a great venue," Jury said. "Hopefully they can get these things going again."

rmccurdy@gannett.com

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This article originally appeared on Marion Star: High school basketball returns to coliseum