A Link To The Past

When Central Valley School District builds its high schools of the future, there is a way to maintain a link to the past.

Name the athletic gymnasiums after men who in many respects put their schools on the statewide map.

The idea is not without precedent.

There’s Ellis Court at East Valley High School, named after longtime educator, coach and athletic director Bill Ellis.

Shadle Park’s gym was recently named after pioneering girls basketball coach Linda Sheridan.

Squinty Hunter Fieldhouse honors Lewis and Clark’s legendary coach of 40 years.

The list of gyms and fields named after notable coaching contributors is long, including Sig T. Hansen Field at Central Valley High School and Ward Maurer Field at West Valley High School.

So let’s give two more Valley legends their due and name the new schools’ gymnasiums after two late Hall of Fame coaches: Ray Thacker of CV and Marv Ainsworth at U-Hi.

“I have no problem with that,” said Don Ressa, U-Hi’s baseball coach of more than 20 years who helped design the new school facilities. “Marv was a great man, a role model and great guy.”

He was also an outstanding coach. When U-Hi opened its doors in 1962 he was named its first coach and remained until retirement after the 1982 season. During that time his teams had only one losing season the first 15 years, won 302 games and lost 155 overall, won eight league championships and had three state placing teams.

He also was the school’s athletic director as well as a mathematics teacher.

Thacker spent nearly 40 years as a teacher and coach at Central Valley. He went 473-180 overall, made 13 state trips and trophied eight times.

He founded Conifer Athletic Camp, a forerunner to the proliferation of summer basketball camps that exist today, and was a well-known community figure.

There were those who felt the existing CV gym should have been named after him.

He had influence in its design when the school was built in the early 1950s. It was huge by that day’s standards and even today seats more fans than any high school gym in Spokane.

Indeed, there was a movement to salvage the facility when the new school is built.

The CV gym was ultimately named after the school’s influential principal, Bill Ames.

Bill Ames Memorial Gym will be reduced to rubble when new construction takes place.

In casual conversation, CV Superintendent Wally Stanley opined that maybe the time is right to lay to rest the idea of naming gymnasiums after people.

But enabling the names of people who achieved above and beyond the norm to live on would give added historical significance to newly constructed high schools.