COSTA MESA UNPLUGGED:

The rugged body that ferried the indomitable, inextinguishable soul of Jim Scott Sr. around these parts some years ago barely works these days.

A stroke two years ago disabled the man’s wiring and, hence, the tireless legs and enthusiastic voice that fueled his hope for and commitment to a new football stadium at Estancia High School. A new aquatic center at Costa Mesa High School.

Since 1995, Jim Scott — as founder and ambassador of Costa Mesa United — moved about the town with conceptual drawings and plans under arm to raise the considerable coin necessary to build the dream. “No” and “It can’t be done” weren’t in his vocabulary.

And make no mistake. This wasn’t a mission for or about Jim Scott.

It was a purpose to serve Costa Mesa’s youth; to provide the city’s youngsters top-shelf places to achieve athletic excellence and to carry forward the tradition of athletic competition and friendly rivalry between Costa Mesa’s two high schools.

That became clear to me on a fall evening in 2001.

Scott and I sat together at Eddie West Field, taking in a playoff game between Estancia and Santa Ana Valley High School. Weeks earlier, Costa Mesa High’s Matt Colby had died following a severe head injury suffered during a Sept. 28 game against Westminster.

I had had many previous chats with Scott about his Costa Mesa United vision, but on this night I saw Scott’s tear-soaked eyes as the players from Estancia and Santa Ana Valley joined in a circle following the game to pray for young Colby.

Scott was deeply pained by Colby’s death. It was a raw and overwhelming grief that he knew. A pain visited upon him and his family when his son Tom was tragically killed years earlier. His experience told him the grief could only be shaken — but never fully — with time.

But it was family and friends who helped salve the experience.

Then Jim Scott Sr. looked down at the prayer circle and leaned toward me. “This is why I’m doing what I’m doing,” he said. “It’s for these kids.”

And so last Saturday at the inaugural Costa Mesa Community Run held at the newly christened Jim Scott Stadium, I knelt down for a word with Scott, who now uses a wheelchair. I looked him straight in the eye, as he had always done with me when preaching his Costa Mesa United message, and told him he did it. That I was proud of him. That he had achieved what he had set out to do. For the kids.

And Old Man Scott looked up at me, slowly, but straight in the eye. And those eyes said this: “I didn’t do it. This community did. All of us. Together.”

Of course, he was right. As usual.

BYRON DE ARAKAL is a former Costa Mesa parks and recreation commissioner. Readers can reach him at cmunplugged@yahoo.com.