After decades of waiting, Beachwood football fans finally had the opportunity to enjoy a night game at home under stadium lights, and the football team had their first opportunity to play at home on turf, as the district unveiled the newly-renovated, $4.4 million stadium at 7:00 PM on Friday, Sept. 16.

The “Flip the Switch” unveiling was originally scheduled for Sept. 9 against East Tech, but was postponed due to expected rain.

“Before I arrived here, we were [already] working on this. When I was on the [Athletic] Boosters, I was trying to get this done,” said Ryan Peters, a member of the Boosters from 1997-2009 and current High School Athletic Director.

Previous efforts to bring stadium lights have failed, disappointing players and fans.

“My freshman year, they told me we would play under the lights during my high school career,” said Bennett Woomer, class of 2016 graduate and four-year football letterwinner. “I think it would have been really cool to play under the lights, but I’m happy for the kids that get to play there now.”

The stadium project represents a new milestone in the long journey of Beachwood’s football program.

The team was viewed as the laughingstock of the East Suburban Conference in the 1960s and 70s. In fact, the most notable memory for many was the fatal lightning strike that occurred on Sept. 8, 1970, killing freshman football players Robert Jacobs and Arny Finkle. Dick Self led the team for the majority of this period.

Yet each source contacted for this article identified one man who improved the culture of Beachwood Football: Joe Perella.

“Joe Perella came in as head coach in 1981 after Dick Self and turned the program around and really transformed the dynamic of the program,” Peters said.

Perella established a weightlifting program and began to build a special bond among the players. Perella essentially established a bond between all of the Beachwood football players– regardless of race or ethnicity. And quickly, a team of small Jewish and African-American teenagers that had been stuck in a cycle of losing turned the culture of Beachwood football around.

“Perella led this team in the greatest era of football that any Beachwood resident has and had ever seen. [As a 1978 graduate and football player], I was really happy and actually envious that [the team] had a coach like that,” stated Herb Schoen, former President of the Beachwood Athletic Boosters.

Perella found a young quarterback in 1981 in sophomore Jack Rotsky, who instantly displayed the qualities Perella was looking for. Rotsky earned All-State honorable mention as a junior and amassed the most yards as a passer in the State of Ohio, beating out All-American Boardman High School senior Bernie Kosar, eventual quarterback of the Cleveland Browns.

Throughout the 1980s, the team continued to improve. Beachwood had several successful seasons, finishing 8-2 or 9-1. Eventually, Perella led the team to their first state playoff appearance in 1989, the same year that the Bison switched to the Metropolitan Area Conference, or MAC-8. Although  the team eventually lost their first round game, Perella had taken a traditionally under-confident and winless team to the next level of high school football.

Perella left the team in 1990, but by then he had transformed Beachwood football forever. Today, there are sixteen football players retired in the Beachwood Hall of Fame, twelve of whom played under Perella.

Beachwood yet again struggled to find stability in their coaching after Perella and returned to a below-average program. Numerous coaches from the 1990’s and mid-2000’s, including multiple year coach Don Green, experienced struggles achieving the same success that Perella had obtained.

That was until Ryan Williams took the head coaching job in 2007 after an 0-10 season in 2006-07. Williams went 2-8 in his first year at Beachwood and then did not achieve a losing record for the remainder of his time as head coach. In 2012, he led the team to 7-3 and just narrowly missed making the State Playoffs for the second time in football history.

Williams resigned after 2012 and Beachwood hired Mike Gibbons to take the reigns. Gibbons led the team to its second and third playoff appearances in his two years at Beachwood before abruptly resigning to take a job at Highland.

In 2015, Beachwood hired Damion Creel, a 1994 BHS grad who played under Perella, to take over the football program. Creel had played football for Hiram College and spent six years as offensive coordinator for Glenville High School, but he had a disappointing 1-9 season in his first year coaching at Beachwood.

Through all of these years, the team played 1 PM Saturday home games five times a season because it was not possible to schedule home games at night.

Until this year.

The stadium renovation has been in the works since Peters took over as Athletic Director.

“When I came here in 2009, it was one of the things that I wanted to accomplish here. I felt we needed facility upgrades,” Peters said.

Before this time, security and religious concerns were cited as reasons that the field lacked lights.

As the high school renovations were completed, the need for a new stadium became more clear.

“Once we had completed the high school renovation/rebuild, I thought that a lighted artificial turf field would soon be a reality,” former Beachwood City Schools Superintendent Richard Markwardt wrote in an email.

Beachwood began to accept bids from vendors to renovate the stadium, eventually accepting the lowest responsible bidder, Capstone Construction Company, at a price of $3.75 Million.

Capstone Construction Company provided synthetic turf, stadium lights, a practice field, a new track, a new press box, a new scoreboard and expanded bleachers. Additional expenses included hiring an architecture firm. The final cost of the project was $4.4 million, according to Beachwood City Schools Treasurer Michele Mills.

On Mar. 29, 2016, the announcement was made public; Beachwood athletics would have a new stadium.

“When you work on something for years and years, you’re so relieved when it comes through,” Peters said. “I’m so excited for (the players) to have such a beautiful stadium with turf and lights and to put teams out there that are excited to play on a Friday night.”