Much was made two years ago as the Douglas High football team set out on the road for the bulk of its season while artificial turf was being installed on its home field.
That season, the Tigers won the Sierra League title while playing its first nine games on the road.
Now try this on for size.
Saturday morning, the Douglas High track team will host its first meet in Minden since 1995.
"There's no doubt, the kids are excited about it," Douglas boys' coach Jim Abbott said. "They've been waiting a long time to be able to compete in front of a home crowd."
Work on a nearly $2 million rennovation of the football field and track complex at Douglas High began in March of 2006 and hit several road bumps along the way due to weather, material shortages and the like.
The track team had to conduct practices during the last two years on the school's soccer field, still producing a number of state qualifiers, a regional championship relay team and a state champ (Ryan Bertucci, high jump).
This year, the completed track " along with its automated timing system, digital scoreboard " has drawn upwards of 130 athletes for the Douglas track program.
"It's a good group, they all come out to work hard," Abbott said.
Along with the increased numbers, Douglas will also be hosting three meets this year, starting with Saturday's conference meet set for 9 a.m. against Fallon, Galena and Wooster.
Carson High's league meet, ironically, will also be at Douglas on March 19 with Damonte Ranch and Elko planning to attend. Douglas' home season ends April 26 with the Big George Invitational.
It's unknown how many schools are planning to make the trip to Minden in April, but with no other invitationals scheduled in the region that weekend, it's a fair bet a majority of the Northern Nevada schools will be there.
"You know what they say, 'If you build, they will come,'" said Douglas cross country coach Keith Cole, who spearheaded the fundraising effort for the track over the last eight years. "It's a very cool thing to finally have this track in place.
"I don't think a lot of people realize what a long process this really was. There's been talk in the community about doing this since long before I got here. There was already a committee in place when I got here and they'd raised $25,000."
It was former coach Lyle Freeman, who was at the helm in 1995 when Douglas hosted its last meet, who first started the plans for the new track.
"We'd gotten into a pattern of hosting a three-way league meet every year and then putting on a Tah-Neva Conference middle school invitational," Freeman said. "My wife and I took a year off to go to Hawaii, that was right after the last home meet.
"When we got back the track had just deteriorated so much that we couldn't host meets any more. We had to go up to Carson to 'host' a meet.
"That's when we started working on getting an all-weather track put in."
Freeman, who now coaches the Incline High School track team, won't be in attendance on Saturday as his team will be opening its season in Sparks.
"Starting with Lyle, there were so many people involved in this process," Cole said. "It's really surreal to see the finished product.
"I was looking out the window from my classroom the other day, and it was amazing to see those kids practicing out there. It's a moment like that when you really remember what you were doing this for."
Cole said the school is still attempting to wrap up a number of final details on the project, including plans for new exterior fencing set for late spring.
"We're planning on a formal grand opening sometime probably in April where the public can come out and see what has been done," Cole said. "But these first couple of meets will kind of be a sneak preview."
Abbott said the team is looking for volunteers to help staff this weekend's meet.
"We have a fair number of people already, but we could definitely use others who want to come and help out," Abbott said. "Any track enthusiasts out there, or anyone who just wants to be a part of it, we will be showing people how to run the timing system, what to look for, things like that."
Interested volunteers can contact the high school at 782-5136 and ask for girls' track coach Kim Tretton.
The meet starts at 9 a.m. Saturday with events expected to run through noon.
