Clark Field House looks about the same now as it did when it was built in 1938, but both its appearance and name soon may change as a booster club works to raise money to remodel and add to the building.
Jerry Sherwood, president of the Purple and Gray Foundation, earlier this month unveiled the booster club's $800,000 plan for the building to Burlington School Board members. The money will be raised through donations, and Sherwood requested the board grant the Purple and Gray Foundation naming rights to the building should a big enough donor request it.
During that meeting, board president Marlis Robberts asked about who the building was named after in the first place. No one knew. Board member Tom Courtney did a quick Google search, but the results were murky at best.
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Who was Clark?
In the hallway of the administration building, outside the boardroom, hangs a picture of James Clarke, the first Burlington School Board president. But the Clark of Clark Field House has no "e".
A trip to the building itself revealed the answer. Hanging in the hallway outside the gymnasium are words on sportsmanship by none other than Charles C. Clark, a 24-year member of the Burlington School Board who served many times as board president and was a prominent promoter of the building's construction.
A Dec. 10, 1938, article in The Hawk Eye, published a day after Clark Field House was dedicated, shows Clark wasn't concerned so much about the name as he was the sportsmanship he hoped the building would lend itself to in the following years.
"The name which (school board members) have so graciously given the field house will probably mean little to the coming generations, but here and now I want it to mean above all things that every part of this building, every nook and cranny, is dedicated to clean, clear, hard and manly sport, absolutely void of all that is mean, ignoble or base," the article quoted Clark as saying during the dedication ceremony, which was held ahead of the first home game of the basketball season in front of a crowd of about 2,250.
Burlington Junior College defeated Washington Junior College by 47-36 that night.
"Life from the cradle to the grave is one long drawn-out battle, and battle, if the ideals are right, develops the highest and best in man," he continued.
"So, beginning this very evening, innumerable contests will be waged through the coming years. It rests with each participant whether these contests shall be worthwhile, or merely to pass the time or for the mere joy of winning. Some one team, some one individual must win, even if there be a tie in the score, but of the contestants every one of them have done their level best, the end of true sport, the goal of successful training is achieved, but there must be this absolute consecration to duty in the ideals of sport, or the highest, the best is not realized."
Clark moved to Burlington in 1883 and taught mathematics in Burlington schools. He joined the Masonic Lodge in 1884 and obtained a law degree from the University of Iowa in 1886. He later became the dean of Burlington attorneys and was a 33rd-degree Mason, among many other things.
Clark died Jan. 22, 1951, at the age of 91. He continued working in his law office at Clark Pryor, Hale & Plock until shortly before his death. He was one of the oldest practicing attorneys in Iowa.
Naming policy
The board will decide at an unspecified upcoming meeting whether to give the Purple and Gray Foundation naming rights to the building. If the board approves, it first must revise board policy No. 801.7, which describes the process through which district facilities should be named.
According to that policy, the decision of facility names ultimately falls on the board.
The board may consider only names of geographic areas within district boundaries, personal names of people who have made a significant local contribution to education or the community, and functional names, such as Administration Building.
Any individual or group wanting to change the name of a facility must submit a written request to the superintendent, who is to have a subcommittee consisting of administrators, staff, community members and a school board liaison, to identify all potential naming opportunities within the facility.
"We don't have a nuts and bolts list. But we have thought about it," said Superintendent Pat Coen, explaining things like the bleachers, the court and the bell could be named for donors. "We're hoping it doesn't get out of hand, but it may."
That list is to be kept on file.
The superintendent and subcommittee are to make a recommendation on requests to name or rename whatever is on that list of naming opportunities, including consideration of other names, to the school board.
The board then is to seek public input at a public forum one meeting prior to the board meeting at which the name will be considered.
Plans to expand
In addition to the decision regarding naming rights, the school board has yet to approve the foundation's request to move forward renovations, pending details of an agreement between the city of Burlington and the school district for sewer separation work on the line that runs beneath a portion of Bracewell Stadium and a small portion of the field house.
The portion of sewer line nearest the northwest corner of Bracewell is shallow, and the top of it was nicked when drains were being installed, said Tim Kesterke, the district's director of facilities and maintenance. The line is about 12 feet underground where it crosses below Clark Field House. The separation work must be completed before any work can begin on Clark Field House.
The board is expected to vote on the Purple and Gray Foundation's proposal at its next regular board meeting Feb. 5.
Plans for Clark Field House are to remodel the lower north portion of the building, which now contains home and visiting locker rooms.
"Right now, we have the visiting locker room on the east side and the home locker room, and they're both really small," Kesterke said.
After the remodel, which will include new lockers and shower areas, the entire area will be designated for home locker rooms, with the junior varsity locker room on the west side and varsity on the east side.
The visiting locker rooms, as well as a new shower area for referees, will be placed in a yet-to-be constructed addition on the east side of the building that connects to the public bathrooms. That building will be about 30 feet by 90 feet.
“Those locker rooms are exactly the same as when I was in school,” Purple and Gray Foundation President Jerry Sherwood, who graduated before the current Burlington High School was built, said earlier this month. “Basically, this needs to be done.”
In addition to sprucing up the locker rooms, the remodel will bring the building into compliance with the rules of the Office of Civil Rights. The entryway to the showers now are raised, making them inaccessible to students in wheelchairs, and the public bathrooms have narrow doorways and are without a handicap stall.
After the remodel, that no longer will be the case, though each bathroom will have only one stall as one will have to be removed to make room to expand the other. The door frames will be widened as well.
A new roof also will be added.
The Clark Field House remodel will be the third phase of the Purple and Gray Foundation's plans for the area at the corner of Division Street and Central Avenue.
The first phase, which included a new video scoreboard, LED lights, the press box and concession stand, was completed in 2014.
The second phase, completed in 2015, consisted of renovations to the entrances, retaining walls, Field Turf, a water feature and Victory Bell Plaza.
Building Clark Field House
R.H. Bracewell, a principal-turned-superintendent, detailed the district's efforts to gain public permission to build the stadium in his weekly column, "These are your schools."
The district had been trying to obtain the public's permission to take out a bond to pay for the building since before 1925, with bond amounts ranging between $75,000 to $125,000. After six or seven failed attempts and with the building the high school had been hosting basketball games in having been declared unsafe, district officials decided to lower the requested bond amount to $50,000, and voters approved.
It wasn't as much as had been hoped for, but it would do, and the district wasted no time making arrangements to erect the building.
Construction began in June that year, and — despite, or perhaps because of, complaints made by the school board members and administrators who felt construction was slow-going — was completed in December, the words "Clark Field House" spelled out in black letters above the main entryway.
"We could not build everything that was desired for $50,000, but we did build and now have a field house," Bracewell wrote in November 1951.
With a seating capacity of about 1,800, the field house drew criticism from some for being too small.
"I remember the criticism that came to me as superintendent and to the board of education because we had build the Clark field house [sic] too small," Bracewell wrote. "I can only say for myself and the board that this was the seventh or eighth attempt to build a field house and the first time we were able to get a favorable vote."