EDITORIAL:

It was 10 years ago that Jim Scott and his son, Jim Scott Jr., unveiled a proposal to the Estancia Men’s Group to build a stadium at Estancia High School.

According to a Daily Pilot story in March of 1996, the Scotts wanted a multi-sports complex featuring 4,500-seat grandstands around a lighted, double-duty field that could be used for football and soccer. On top of that, they called for two more lighted fields for soccer or football, and they would have added lighting to two baseball fields and nine basketball courts.

“We’re not asking for the moon,” Jim Scott Sr. said at the time. “We’re using a common sense approach to upgrade facilities for use on the Westside” of Costa Mesa.

The estimated cost: $1.8 million to $3 million.

Fast forward to 2006. Jim Scott Sr., now 10 years older and confined to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke, is closer to seeing his dream come true.

The project now calls for merely a stadium at Estancia and a pool at Costa Mesa High. The price tag now? Just $17 million.

But thanks to Scott’s perseverance, the voters’ approval of a bond measure in 2005, and the work of Costa Mesa United, the Harbor Boulevard of Cars and other local Costa Mesa boosters, the stadium is not such a far-fetched idea any more.

Let’s talk a bit about what that all means for Costa Mesa. Newport Harbor has a stadium and a pool, and Corona del Mar has a world-class pool. Costa Mesa High and Estancia have neither. Building these sports complexes would do wonders for the team spirit and boosterism at Costa Mesa’s high schools.

It’s a shame they didn’t have these facilities from the start. No, Scott wasn’t asking for the moon, just equity and fairness for the kids in his hometown.

So it will be a great community tribute to Scott and his family when the ground finally breaks on these projects.

The hope is that he has recuperated from his stroke by the time the work is done and may even be able to do a victory lap.

For a man described by others as a pit bull, that’s not such a far-fetched idea.

As always, we know we can count on Jim Scott to prevail.