Football field renaming called off

Plans to name the Cimarron-Memorial High School football field in honor of its late football coach were scuttled Friday after a veterans advocate objected to the name change.

School officials had planned a halftime ceremony during Friday night's game to rename the field Greg Spencer Field at Veterans Stadium. Spencer, who led the school to state football championships in 1998 and 1999, died of cancer in January at the age of 52.

Dennis Ellestad, who fought to name the campus Veterans Memorial High School before it opened two decades ago, said he read about the ceremony in Friday's Review-Journal and began calling school district officials to object.

"I have nothing against renaming a field after the coach. Not this one," Ellestad said in an interview.

Michael Rodriguez, a district spokesman, said Cimarron-Memorial had no intention of changing the name of Veterans Stadium. But the plan was canceled because the school didn't follow proper procedures for renaming school facilities, he said.

Name changes must go before a school board appointed naming committee.

"People are disappointed. The bottom line is we didn't follow protocol," said Calvin Valvo, the school's athletic director.

The halftime ceremony to honor Spencer and his legacy at the school went on as planned.

One of Spencer's sons, Chase, said after the ceremony that it's all a misunderstanding.

"It is Veterans Stadium. It was going to be Greg Spencer Field at Veterans Stadium."

He said he was disappointed the field was not going to named for his father on Friday, considering relatives had traveled from San Diego, North Dakota and Denver to be at the event. Still, he said, his father would have wanted proper procedure to be followed.

"My father's well deserving of it. He changed a lot of people's lives," Chase Spencer said.

For Ellestad, the issue is giving America's veterans the recognition they deserve.

"I feel sorry for the coach and everything, but there's so many things to name after people," he said.

Spencer's name should adorn a school building or another field, but not the field that Ellestad says honors the country's military veterans. Ellestad himself is not a veteran but fights to have them recognized.

When the school was being built in 1990, the Clark County School Board planned to name it Memorial High School, but prospective students complained the name would invite rival schools to tease them with nicknames such as the "Memorial mummies."

Ellestad and others wanted the name to be Veterans Memorial, but the board chose Cimarron-Memorial instead, he said. Veterans Stadium was given its name to satisfy Ellestad and others who wanted the school named Veterans Memorial, he said.

Ellestad may have another fight on his hands, as Valvo said school officials would renew their efforts to rename the field after Spencer.

"If it's the last thing any of us ... do, it will get done, whether people like it or not," Valvo said

Review-Journal writer Antonio Planas contributed to this report.

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281. Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-374-7917.