ILLINI LEGENDS, LISTS & LORE

Build That Stadium!

Eighty nine years ago Sunday, Goerge Huff and Bob Zuppke set out on an historic jaunt through the Western states to raise funds for a new stadium. In chapter 10 of "Zuppke of Illinois", a book produced in 1937 by A.L. Glaser Publishers, author Red Grange described how the athletic arena known as Memorial Stadium came to be. Beginning, ironically, on page 77 of the book:

The vastly increased interest in the football teams turned out by Bob Zuppke made the seating capacity of Old Illinois Field entirely inadequate. When it was estimated that nearly 20,000 persons were unable to obtain seats to the Ohio State game in 1920, sentiment began to crystallize for the building of a Stadium large enough to accommodate the thousands who could not possibly be admitted to the small field that had been in use since 1900. "I haven't the slightest doubt," said George Huff, "that we could have sold more than 40,000 tickets and possibly 50,000 for the Ohio State game if we had had the seating facilities. With the growing interest in our athletics, it is no idle guess to prophesy that every one of the 75,000 seats in the new Stadium will be sold for the big games of the next few years." Robert C. Zuppke, "G" Huff and alumnus Elmer Ekblaw became the "Big Three" in the Stadium Drive. Offices for the campaign were opened in the Old Union Building, and student committees were formed, and the real job–selling the idea to the student body–began in earnest. The propaganda took the form of mass meetings, speeches, parades, contests, pictures and posters. "BUILD THAT STADIUM FOR FIGHTING ILLINI" became the slogan, and "FIGHT ILLINI" the official Stadium song. Zup put his heart, sounds, mind and body back of the drive for funds for the erection of the Memorial Stadium. He is a zealot in anything he undertakes and, as chairman of the $2,000,000 Stadium Drive Committee, he traveled thousands of miles, addressed hundreds of groups of Illini the country over. He loves every grain of concrete in that Stadium. It represents the accomplishment of a practical dream.

Illini Birthdays

Sunday: Mac McCracken, football (55)

Monday: Craig Virgin, cross country/track & field (55)

Tuesday: Tim Smith, track & field (54)

Wednesday: Rachel Henderson, volleyball (23)

Thursday: Terra Crutchfield-Tyus, track & field (36)

Friday: Ben Reeser, baseball (24)

Saturday: Scott Davis, football (45)

By Mike Pearson, Author of Illini Legends, Lists & Lore, Assistant Athletic Director at Miami University