Monday was supposed to be the first day of practice for the River Forest girls basketball team.

It was. But it was of the make-shift variety.

And practice didn’t take place at River Forest High School. Meister Elementary was the locale.

That’s because the fire that damaged the high school early Thursday morning has left the gymnasium unsafe for use for the foreseeable future.

River Forest athletic director Dennis Leonard anticipates the gym being closed through December and possibly for the entire winter season, meaning the Ingots boys and girls basketball programs may play their seasons on the road.

“I’ve talked to some of the people with teams we play early in the season,” Leonard said. “We’re going to have to move some.”

And making things even more maddening is the fact the fire has been ruled an arson.

“Extracurricular activities are kind of secondary to everything that has happened, but at the same time they’re an important part of the kids’ high school experience,” Leonard said. “Our seniors may have played their last home basketball game in March of last year.

“And they didn’t expect that to happen. It’s not a good situation, but we’ll get through it.”

River Forest girls varsity basketball coach Rich Heavlin made the best of the situation and was grateful to the folks at Meister who volunteered the use of their gym. But considering classes have been canceled for the time being, Heavlin had a difficult time reaching everybody on his team over the weekend.

“We didn’t have a way of getting in touch with everybody until the last minute,” Heavlin said. “They knew we were going to start on the 25th (of this month), but we couldn’t get them the specifics, so we didn’t have everybody at practice.”

Heavlin said he anticipates splitting practice time between Meister and the junior high school.

“Basically, I told them this is going to make things more difficult for us,” Heavlin said. “The bottom line is, it’s not an excuse. We just have to work harder and do the best we can.”

In all eight programs are affected — the seventh- and eighth-grade boys and girls teams and the high school junior varsity and varsity boys and girls teams.

“Each coach is going to make some sacrifices,” Ingots boys varsity coach Jason Quigg said. “We’re probably going to shorten practices a little bit and try to work with each other. It’s going to be difficult for a while.”

Leonard said the high school gym suffered smoke and water damage from the fire, and the south wall sustained structural damage. Officials, Leonard said, are still trying to determine the extent of the structural damage and what will be required to fix it, but there is a possibility the entire south wall will need to be taken down and replaced.

“It’s a shame it came to this,” Leonard said. “This probably isn’t going to hit home for our teams until they haven’t played a home game for a month and a half. But we’re hoping for the best.”

Among the items damaged, Quigg said, were the school’s basketball banners.

“You can replace banners and bricks,” Quigg said. “But it’d be really hard if we lost somebody, and thankfully we didn’t.”

Leonard said the River Forest wrestling program will also have to make due without the gym. But one of the biggest problems will be finding a place to conduct physical education classes.

“We’ll have to work something out for them,” Leonard said, “because right now there’s no place for them to go.”

Tom Wyatt can be reached at 648-3140 or by e-mail at twyatt@post-trib.com.