A 1921 architectural rendering of Memorial Stadium with a campanile, or bell tower.
Until 1914, the seating capacity at Illinois Field, home of University of Illinois football, was just 4,000. But the arrival in 1913 of coach Bob Zuppke brought great on-field success, notoriety and new attendance records.
Between 1915 and 1920, per-game attendance more than doubled (from 5,589 to 12,525), and the capacity at nondescript Illinois Field was enlarged twice so that it held 20,000 spectators, including standing room. In 1922, more than 32,000 turned out for a game against Ohio State.
Years earlier, athletic director George Huff (who had been Illinois' head football coach from 1895 to 1899) began planning for a much larger stadium for the Illini, something akin to the groundbreaking Yale Bowl that had changed the arc of college football forever when it opened in 1914. The home of Yale football originally had a capacity of 70,869 -- more than twice as much as old Yale Field and its capacity of 33,000.
In 1914, the Champaign Daily News reported that "a stadium large enough to take care of Illinois football crowds for the next decade is expected to be one of the results of the sensational performance of Zuppke's Illini on the gridiron this season." A year later, the Urbana Daily Courier wrote that Huff hoped to have a new football stadium within two years.
"Director Huff, in discussing the proposition, said the idea was his own and that as yet has no sanction from other university authorities," said the Courier's report. "He believes the time has come when Illinois must have a great stadium: one nearer the Yale Bowl type than the country town ball stand."
That was a grand vision given that Yale was in New Haven, Conn., a city of 150,000 just 85 miles from New York, and the University of Illinois was in a community of 30,000 more than 120 miles from Chicago.
Indeed, Huff told the Courier that he "expects to have to accommodate 25,000 people in 1916 if Coach Zuppke continues his march to success, as is now apparent." But Illinois football attracted a total of just 26,238 for all four home games that year, an average of 6,560 -- about a fourth of what Huff had predicted.
It didn't matter. Soon the world was at war, and by 1917, the U.S. was involved. College football was an afterthought.
But with the end of the war and a period of prosperity (the gross national product grew 4.2 percent a year in the '20s and even greater than that in the first half of the decade), the growth of college football and a boom in stadium construction was renewed.
The competition for contributions to finance all the construction was fierce. Huff set up fundraising coordinators in every state with mixed success. One Illinois alum complained that she was getting appeals from too many universities and couldn't afford to give to the drive to pay for the new Illinois football stadium, a memorial to the Illini killed in the world war. The coordinator of the campaign in California, W.H. Kiler, telegraphed that "California and Stanford both conducting stadium drives this week. (News)papers are loath to give us publicity on that account."
Virtually every current Big Ten school opened a new stadium in the 1920s, beginning with Washington's Husky Stadium (opened in 1920 with a capacity of 30,000), Ohio State's famed "Horseshoe" (which debuted in 1922 with 66,210 seats) and Iowa's Kinnick Stadium (built in seven months and opened in October 1929).
Three Big Ten stadiums officially opened within a few weeks of each other in 1924: Minnesota's 52,736-seat Memorial Stadium, Illinois' 67,000-capacity Memorial Stadium on Oct. 18, and Purdue's Ross-Ade Stadium, with room for about 18,500, on Nov. 22.
Indiana's new stadium was to have been dedicated on Nov. 8, 1924, but "was found to need considerable rebuilding because the concrete crumbled, and will not be ready for dedication until next fall," said an Associated Press story.
At an April 1921 meeting designed to build support for the stadium drive, Huff put the campaign in reverential terms and said the building would not be just for athletes and coaches but also many others.
"I want to see a great stadium at the University of Illinois. I believe that you will get it. I believe that there is a great spirit at this university," Huff said. "The stadium will be many things -- a memorial to Illini who died in the war, a recreational field and an imposing place for our varsity games. But it also will be an unprecedented expression of Illinois spirit."
There was little originality in Huff's strategy to name the stadium for war dead, although including 200 limestone columns containing the names of Illini who perished in the war was a genuinely outstanding idea. All over the country, including Soldier Field in Chicago, stadiums were being built to honor those who fought in the world war.
Illinois' original vision for the memorial, contained in a 1921 brochure sent to alumni, included much more than a 75,000-seat football stadium and track, all with a price tag of $2.5 million (about $41.5 million in today's dollars).
"Young men and women spending four years of their lives in the vicinity of such an edifice cannot help absorbing some of its lofty inspiration," said UI President David Kinley. "A still more practical cultural development will come from the Greek theater, seating 10,000 people, which will stand in the honor court. It will be a setting for outdoor plays, pageants, May fetes and music festivals enriching the imagination of participants and the beholders."
Under the grandstands on both sides of the stadium were to be wrestling floors, handball and basketball courts, and lockers and showers. Outside of the stadium was to be a 100-acre recreation field with baseball and football fields, clay tennis courts, soccer and lacrosse fields, and more.
Soaring over the stadium would be a campanile, a bell tower, much like the 307-foot-tall Sather Tower that opened at the University of Califonia-Berkeley in 1916.
"In the great Memorial Stadium and Recreation Field projected for our campus, I see the beginning of greater glory and finer loyalty for old Illinois," said U.S. Sen. Willam McKinley, a UI grad and Champaign resident.
"Everywhere in our land, great stadiums are being built," said Illinois' other senator, Medill McCormick. "On the campus of the University of Illinois, the stadium movement should attain its climactic development in a temple of incomparable beauty and dignity, a monumental structure which will be a wonderful stadium, a worthy memorial and a significant symbol of Illini loyalty and courage -- all in one!"
The grand vision for Illinois' memorial eventually had to be scaled back, much like those at Nebraska, Kansas State and other schools. Nebraska's memorial initially was to be called the "Nebraska Soldiers and Sailors Memorial," with a gymnasium, football stadium and war memorial. Kansas State's was to include a fully enclosed stadium.
Still, the stadium construction movement continued. Following in Illinois' footsteps were Northwestern (1926) and Michigan Stadium (1927).
Michigan athletic director Fielding Yost had difficulty building support for a new football stadium among the university's administration. It took about four years for him to persuade the campus brass to approve plans for a 72,000-seat stadium. His argument was put in in terms of masculinity.
"Whether the stadium is crammed to capacity or almost empty," Yost said, "the desire to win by students and alumni is present just the same. It will be a sad day for the youth of America when they no longer want to win. They will become a limp, listless set of boys and girls."
Big Ten Commissioner Maj. John L. Griffith, who following the world war was put in charge of physical education for the entire U.S. Army and later taught P.E. at Illinois, defended the construction of mammoth college football stadiums and the accompanying threat to amateurism.
"The development of football which has compelled university officials to build these immense athletic fields does not mean commercialism in the sport," he said. "It is simply a response to the demand of friends of these boys and these schools for opportunities to witness their games. Prices are kept down, in almost every case the public can get tickets, and the influences which might harm the amateur status of the boys are closely watched.
"These big football fields with their large box-office receipts merely mean that the schools are able to devote more money and time to the athletic development of the entire student body, by using part of the profits the public pays to see football."
He noted that Ohio State used $13,000 from its football profits in 1923 (about $244,000 today) to pay for intramural athletics, "money which the state did not have to appropriate for this purpose."
Building boom Big Ten football stadiums built in the 1920s: Husky Stadium, University of Washington. Built in 1920 with an original capacity of 30,000. $600,000 construction cost. Ohio Stadium, Ohio State University, 1922, original capacity 66,210. $1.34 million constriction cost. - Rose Bowl, University of California at Los Angeles, 1922, original capacity 57,000. $272,198 construction cost. - Memorial Stadium, University of Nebraska, 1923, original capacity 31,000. $430,000 construction cost - Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, University of Southern California, 1923, original capacity 75,000. $954,873 construction cost. - Macklin Field, Michigan State University, 1923, original capacity 13,064. $160,001 construction cost - Old Byrd Stadium, University of Maryland, 1923, original capacity 5,000. $60,000 construction cost - Memorial Stadium, University of Illinois, 1924, original capacity 67,886. $1.7 million construction cost - Memorial Stadium, University of Minnesota, 1924, original capacity 52,736. $572,00 construction cost - Ross-Ade Stadium, Purdue University, 1924, original capacity 13,500 plus 5,000 standing room. $237,500 construction cost. - Memorial Stadium, Indiana University, 1925, original capacity 20,000. $250,000 construction cost. - Dyche Stadium, Northwestern University, 1926, original capacity 45,000. $2.6 million construction cost. - Michigan Stadium, University of Michigan, 1927, original capacity 72,000 (plus 10,000 temporary seats). $950,000 construction cost. - Iowa Stadium, University of Iowa, 1929, original capacity 45,000. $497,151 construction cost {related_content_uuid}52f3092b-e921-49d0-988a-c40bae575a15{/related_content_uuid}