State Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, remembers when the need for a new track and football stadium for Howard School first felt real to him.
"It was here," he said, holding out a Nov. 22, 2010, article from the Times Free Press that pictured sprinter LaQuisha Jackson, already a state record-breaker in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, talking about the track team having to go to other schools to practice because of the poor condition of the school's oval.
"There's been talk of a new track and stadium for Howard for a long time," the article states.
Gardenhire, a mid-1960s track athlete at the former City High, felt he had to get involved. Many others had been invested in the project long before him, he said, but one person was the prime "mover and shaker."
That man, he said, is former Hamilton County Commissioner Greg Beck, a Howard graduate but a man whose district did not include the South Market Street school.
The former three-term commissioner, according to Gardenhire, never let the issue fade away, despite numerous setbacks. He recalled the commissioner first trying to help rally grassroots efforts and finally making sure the track/football stadium would be among the school facilities that built with bond money from a 2017 de facto property tax increase.
Beck played a large role in "keeping the county commission's feet to the fire" through the last decade, Gardenhire said.
The dilapidated track might have rehabbed sooner, but the stadium and track had been built on what was essentially a landfill. So it became pockmarked with holes, revealing concrete and gravel below what was left of the surface. If that wasn't bad enough, the whole complex had been built in a flood zone and has poor drainage.
Officials broke ground for the new stadium and track last week, and Gardenhire made sure Beck knew about the event. On the day it happened, Beck was invited to don a hard hat and wield a shovel.
"I declare this day ... an answer to prayers," the former commissioner said. "A lot of people gave up and said it would never happen. But it has happened. ... Finally, we were able to get someone to listen to us."
Although Beck was defeated in a bid for a fourth full term on the commission last year, his efforts will forever live on in the Howard athletes who are able to shoot out of the starting blocks on the track or find a hole, not in the turf but in an opponents' offense, on the football field.