Farewell to The Pit: Last basketball season for iconic Triway gym

Randy Montgomery remembers the first time he laid eyes on The Pit like it was yesterday.

Montgomery was a 28-year-old looking for a job, and he planned to interview for the Triway boys basketball head coach position. It was 1983, and Montgomery had just finished having dinner with Triway alum Keith Snoddy, who he’d met while they both attended Youngstown State, to get the inside scoop on the Triway community.

“Keith said, ‘Let’s go see this gym,’” Montgomery said. “It was like 9:30 or 10 on a Sunday night, and it was all locked up, except one door. We jiggled the door handle and went in. We came in here and got the lights on, and I said, ‘Wow, this is cool.’”

What would take place in The Pit with Montgomery and then Snoddy serving as head coaches over the next three decades was the stuff of legend.

Montgomery compiled a 342-97 record from 1983-84 to 2001-02, winning 14 league titles, five district championships, and reaching the OHSAA Final Four in 1988 and 1991.

After Montgomery opted to become the head coach at North Canton Hoover, where he won 206 games in 12 seasons, longtime assistant Snoddy became the head coach.

Snoddy’s teams had a 159-103 record over 11 seasons, highlighted by finishing as Division II state runners-up in 2005 and 2006.

Montgomery, who wound up his coaching career with a 600-205 mark and is in the Ohio Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and Snoddy returned to The Pit recently to talk about their memories.

The Titans will host the last varsity basketball games ever in The Pit during a girls/boys doubleheader against Orrville on Feb. 17. Tickets for the game in the 1,200-seat Pit sold out 15 minutes after being made available online, but the auditorium will accommodate additional fans with a closed-circuit broadcast of the game.

The 250,000-square-foot One Triway building, which will house preschool through 12th grade and open in late December, will have an approximate 2,000-seat gym.

The centerpiece of the new gym will be Carmichael Court, named to honor the contributions of the late Sean Carmichael and the rest of his family.

Sean Carmichael was a three-sport Triway star in the 1980s. He played for Montgomery and later served as an assistant coach under him, then Snoddy and current coach Ben Holt, as well as being the athletic director.

“It’s tough to see (the end of The Pit) with all of the tradition, but you also understand that these things happen, and it’s pretty exciting what we’re hearing about the new gym we’re going into,” said Holt, who’s 93-48 in his sixth year at Triway including 13-5 this season.

While the Triway district has a lot to look forward to with its new school and gym, this February it’s understandable there’s also sadness about saying goodbye to The Pit. The current high school, which includes The Pit, will be torn down, and the site will become a parking lot.

“It’s been well taken care of, and it’s bittersweet that it’s gonna be gone,” Snoddy said. “You’d love to have been able to have kept it in some way, but I also know it’s economics. It wasn’t feasible to keep it.”

The beginning

Rick Rottman, a 1969 Triway graduate, may have watched more games in The Pit than anyone. He played on some outstanding Triway teams in the late 1960s, coached by David Hutchinson Jr. (174-129 from 1965-80). Later, Rottman’s kids Nicki, Linc and Jock became All-Ohioans in the early 2000s.

“I have tremendous memories: 60 years of community support, purple pride, high level of quality basketball, team spirit from the youngest kids there to the oldest ones in the community who come and watch,” Rottman said.

By the numbers

The Pit is one of Ohio’s most unique courts, serving as home to the Titans since the school opened. Triway High opened in 1962, and the gym was ready for play in 1963.

The basketball court measures 80-by-54 and lies 5 foot, 2 inches below the second floor of the building. There’s barely enough room on one side to squeeze in a scorer’s table and chairs for the coaches and bench players to sit. On the other side, there’s only 2 1/2 feet between the out-of-bounds line and a padded wall.

“When I played here, there was nothing,” Snoddy said. “There was a little pad under the backboard, and the rest was a block wall. My head will attest to that.”

The Pit looks like it could have been a good space for a swimming pool. Superintendent Nate Schindewolf said that was never part of the original blueprint, contrary to a local urban legend told over the years.

Principal Scott Wharton, who played on Montgomery’s first team, said he’s heard there were a few other gyms built in the early 1960s with the court sunken in. That may have influenced the designers.

Some visiting fans bemoaned The Pit because the whole floor wasn’t visible depending on where you were seated, but almost all Triway faithful love it and the game day atmosphere.

Randy comes to town

Triway had endured seven consecutive losing seasons before Montgomery came to town for what he thought would be a couple of seasons. He planned to rejoin then Central Florida assistant Bob Huggins, who he’d coached with at Walsh, on a Div. I college staff somewhere.

“Long story short, I came for a year or two and stayed for 19,” Montgomery said. “Keith was a big part of everything we did. We built outdoor basketball courts. We did 3-on-3 (tournaments). We did everything. It was a lot of fun, and through the years, there are a lot of great memories in this iconic place to play. I was happy when I left that he got the job.”

Triway had enjoyed a huge home-court advantage in The Pit including a 94-8 record in the 1990s. One of those losses came in 1993 against Oak Hill Academy (Virginia), which wound up going 36-0, winning the USA Today national No. 1 ranking and producing four future NBA players led by Jerry Stackhouse.

Many of the matchups against archrival Orrville and legendary late coach Steve Smith also rank among the most memorable for Montgomery, Snoddy, and Triway players and fans alike.

Feb. 17, that all comes to an end. But, the memory of The Pit will live on.

“I love the venue,” said Rottman. “I never have regrets, just appreciation for what we were able to participate in and be a part of.”