ELYRIA — A great rivalry deserves a great piece of hardware to present to the winner.

Elyria High School and Elyria Catholic High School are hoping to become great football rivals. Tonight’s first-ever meeting between the crosstown rivals is expected to be the start of a tradi­tion.

And there’s already a trophy for which to play, thanks to the Elyria Police and Fire departments.

The victorious team will be first to display a football helmet — with one side decorated in Elyria High School cherry red and the other side decorated in EC’s forest green — in its school trophy case.

It all started with a charity basket­ball game.

The firefighters were approached by the police in February for the purpose of holding a basketball game between the departments, with the proceeds going to the ath­letic programs of the schools.

“I knew Elyria and EC were going to play each other in football,” said Joe Pronesti, a captain in the Fire Department. “I said, ‘Why don’t we hype the game?’ The police liked the idea.”

And so the idea of the helmet tro­phy was born. Dave Seljan of the Fire Department designed the oak base on which the helmet sits. Rid­dell, the football equipment manu­facturer with a factory in Elyria, built the base and contributed the helmet.

A plaque adorns the front of tro­phy. It reads: “In recognition of ‘THE GAME’ — Elyria Catholic H.S. vs. Elyria H.S.” Smaller plaques record­ing the results of each year’s game will be added to the wooden base.

The trophy was completed in April. It was in the office of EHS ath­letic director Jerry Chizmar this week.

“What was nice was the reaction of the people in the administration building when they saw it for the first time, because it’s such an unusual design,” Pronesti said. “It’s a beautiful trophy. It’s very cool.”

Even the face mask was painted with red on one half and green on the other half.

“The Police and Fire departments did a fantastic job on this,” Chizmar said. “It’s a terrific piece of work.”

“I hope it sits proudly in a trophy case in Elyria High or Elyria Catholic for many years to come,” Pronesti said.

Pronesti, who has two daughters who attend Elyria Catholic, couldn’t resist fueling the young rivalry.

“Preferably, it will stay at EC.”

Contact Steve Byrne at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

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