The Swisher Field complex on the campus of Aberdeen Central is getting a makeover.

In addition to work on the locker rooms, press box and ticket areas, the field and complex will have new names going forward.

The Aberdeen School Board voted this past week to rename the football field Golden Eagles Field. The board also announced that the complex, which includes the other areas surrounding the field, will now be known as the Brownell Activities Complex in honor of former Central athletic director and coach Gene Brownell.

The facility has worn the Swisher name from its inception in honor of former Northern State athletic director and coach Clark Swisher.

“We don’t want to diminish the name of Swisher at all, because that’s been a great name for Aberdeen and especially for Northern State University,” said Central athletic director Dawn Seiler. “We’re in the process right now of maybe looking to updating the complex and when you’re going through renovations, that’s usually a good time to go ahead with something like that if there’s an interest to do that. So that’s where we’re at and that’s why the decision was made for right now.”

When Northern opened its new Dacotah Bank Stadium last fall, it meant that the Wolves would no longer be playing its games at Central. Recently Roncalli announced it would also no longer be playing at the Central field, instead having its home games at the Northern facility.

Seiler said the school district began considering renaming the parts of the facility and Brownell’s name received multiple recommendations.

“(Superintendent) Dr. (Becky) Guffin did due diligence in reaching out to the Swisher family, and also taking recommendations for renaming that particular field,” Seiler said. “She did make sure that people knew this was something the school district was considering.”

Brownell has been a part of the current facility since it opened 17 years ago, after it relocated from its previous site on the northeast corner of the city.

“Gene was instrumental in building that facility,” Seiler said. “He did a lot of the legwork as far as the community relations side of things and tying in Northern and tying in PC and bringing in Roncalli to play where it really was a community facility at that time.”

Presentation College will continue to play its football games on the Central campus and Northern State will continue to use the complex for track and field.

Seiler said the names on the fieldhouse in honor Jim Kretchman and Don Reshetar, as well as the name of Al Sahli on the track, will remain as they have been.

“Those are great Aberdeen names,” Seiler said. “We really feel that Gene deserves a place to be recognized with those names, too, because of all the work for so many years that he did in the Aberdeen community.”

There is no timetable for the work to be completed on the upgrades to the facility, because of construction delays.

“Eventually we want this to be a very welcoming, very updated complex with our signage and our freshening up of our buildings,” Seiler said.

Seiler emphasized that Central maintains a good relationship with Northern and all of the other entities that have been involved with Swisher Field in the past.

“Across the city, whether it’s city facilities or school district facilities or Northern facilities, we always recognize that we need to share those facilities,” Seiler said. “They are public facilities. We do have good working relationships with all of those entities.”