Cook County News Herald

Community members would like to see gym named after Pam Taylor




Should you have to die to have a field or gymnasium named after you?

No, said Lyle Anderson, who had the high school field named after him following a successful teaching and coaching career at CCHS.

At least in retrospect, Anderson hopes that doesn’t have to be the case.

Anderson was upset that school board chair Sissy Lunde suggested that the board might show some restraint in naming a facility after a living person in case they did something detrimental to society after the structure or field was named after them.

Lunde made her comments at the last school board meeting when it was suggested that the school board consider naming the school’s varsity gym after coach Pam Taylor.

Pam Taylor, who just finished taking her varsity volleyball team to a third straight trip to state volleyball championships, has announced she is retiring after this year.

Taylor has taught health and physical education, served as the athletic director for many years, stepped in as an interim dean, and coached for 35 years at Cook County High School.

During Anderson’s tenure he taught physical education, health and served as athletic director and was the football coach for 25 years. He led three straight Viking teams to three consecutive unbeaten seasons and Class A state championships in the late 1990s. Anderson was voted into the Polar League Hall of Fame in 2016. In 1999 he was named Minnesota Class A State High School Football Coach of the Year, and in 2003 he was inducted into the Minnesota Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Coach Anderson brought up the fact that the baseball field was named after current varsity baseball coach Arleigh Jorgenson and that the Mianowski Center, where the school board meets, was named in honor of former mathematics (great) teacher and school board member Jane Mianowski before she died.

“It’s a great honor to have something named after you,” said Anderson, who added he was disappointed in hearing that Lunde insinuated that someone should be dead to have the same honor.

However, it isn’t without precedent to remove an honor bestowed on a living coach. Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was alive when a bronze sculpture in his likeness was put up on the college campus grounds in 2001. In 2012 the statue was removed when it was learned that Paterno knew about his former assistant Jerry Sandusky’s pedophile acts while working for the college. Sandusky was charged and sentenced to a long prison stay for his grievous crime and Paterno’s statue was removed. That said, CCHS isn’t about big money sports and Pam Taylor has nothing in her past to indicate anything remotely bad will be the cause of such actions.

Middle school teacher Sue Nelson spoke next. She said she brought the idea of naming the gym after Coach Taylor to the school board. She said it would be fitting company (with Anderson, Jorgenson and Mianowski) for Taylor to have the gym named after her. “She coached there, taught there, that gym says ‘Pam Taylor’ in a lot of ways,” said Nelson.

School board chair Sissy Lunde said the school board would discuss renaming the gym after Pam Taylor at an upcoming meeting. Because the agenda only had two items on it, the board couldn’t take any action on her request at this time.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.