MCSD to name new sports complex in honor of championship coach. Here’s what to know
The name of the Muscogee County School District’s new sports complex will honor a coach who led teams to four state championships.
The late Odis Spencer Sr. (1920-95) is the honoree recommended by Vanessa Jackson, the District 3 representative on the Muscogee County School Board.
Board policy requires the recommendation to be tabled until the next regular meeting, so the public has time to give representatives feedback before the vote. District 7 representative Cathy Williams, however, moved to waive the 30-day waiting period, and the board unanimously approved the motion and the recommendation during Monday night’s meeting.
Williams explained her rationale in an email Tuesday to the Ledger-Enquirer.
“It was just unnecessary to wait,” she said. “There was only one name brought forward by the committee.”
Asked whether cutting short the public comment period was a factor, Williams said, “It wasn’t. I had already gotten a lot of public feedback, 100% in favor of the recommendation.”
District 3 contains the site of the systemwide sports complex MCSD plans to construct with $25.5 million in revenue from the 1% Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, which Columbus voters renewed in June.
The complex — comprising a stadium with approximately 7,000 seats and an artificial turf field for football, soccer and lacrosse, plus five tennis courts — will be on the property of the former Cusseta Road Elementary School. That’s adjacent to the new Spencer High School, 1000 Fort Benning Road.
Spencer High is named after the late William Henry Spencer (1857-1925), who supervised MCSD’s Negro Education Department during racial segregation. Odis Spencer wasn’t related to William Henry Spencer, but he taught and coached at the school — also during segregation.
Odis Spencer’s football teams won the Georgia Interscholastic Association championship in 1950, 1952, 1956 and 1967. Integration allowed GIA schools to join the Georgia High School Association in 1971.
According to the biography attached to the board’s agenda, Spencer’s football teams also were GIA state runners-up five times and region champs 10 times. He was GIA Coach of the Year four times.
In 23 years, he compiled 154 wins, 54 losses and 14 ties. Thirteen of his student athletes signed professional football contracts. Numerous others earned college scholarships.
He was inducted into the Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2015.
Spencer also taught history, coached basketball and track & field and served as athletics director. He came out of retirement to join the staff at Hardaway High School for a while before retiring again in 1985.
He was born in Bessemer, Alabama, and graduated from Alabama State College Laboratory High School and Alabama State University, where he played football and earned a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in education.
The new sports complex is expected to be completed by March 2022, according to MCSD’s construction status update. It will be MCSD’s third facility for high school football games. MCSD’s eight high schools with football programs use Kinnett Stadium at Shaw High School and the city-owned A.J. McClung Memorial Stadium at South Commons.
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 9:00 AM.
