OSU
Sports History Minute - October 13, 2000
Part
4 of 10: Home Sweet Home
Oregon
State began playing football in 1893 with a modest
five-game schedule. Since that time, the Beavers have
used six different locations for their "home" games.
OSU's first home football field was located on lower
campus directly in front of Benton and Education halls
between downtown Corvallis and the university. The
oldest photograph of an Oregon State football game
currently in the university archives is of a kickoff
in a game played in 1898 between Albany College and
OSU on this site.
This is the oldest photo of a Beaver football game
(vs. Albany College) currently in the OSU Archives,
taken in 1898 on OSU's "lower campus," the university's
original home field. Photo courtesy the OSU Archives,
Rodney and Randy Tripp Collection.
Field No. 2 was located directly beneath McAlexander
Fieldhouse and the surface was sawdust, not grass.
This field was used by head coach Fred S. Norcross
to fashion some of the most impressive defensive teams
in school history. From 1906-08, Oregon State gave
up a total of four points in 72 quarters! The 1907
team finished undefeated, untied and gave up no points
on defense, the only squad in OSU football history
to achieve the almost mythical "pristine" season.
Sawdust surface.
OSU's second home stadium, on ground beneath where
McAlexander Fieldhouse is now located.
In 1910, a riot at the Civil War game between OSU
and Oregon resulted in the two schools voting not
to compete in athletics in 1911. Therefore, there
is no Civil War game in 1911, but the series does
return the next year on a "neutral" field in Albany,
the brainchild of an Albany cigar-maker named Billy
Eagles, who was also the brother-in-law of Oregon
State head football coach Sam Dolan. OSU played three
home games at this stadium from 1912-1914, UO twice,
UW once. Today, the old stadium is a soccer field
with no bleachers. It is located directly across highway
99E from the Amtrak station near downtown Albany and
the historic Central School building.
By 1912, Oregon State was already in the process of
shifting the McAlexander Fieldhouse location slightly
to the west, on a piece of ground now occupied by
the Dixon Recreation Center.
Bell Field hosted games for over four decades.
This picture was taken in 1921, before a roof was
built to make the locale a little more hospitable
during the rainy Oregon autumns.
The stadium eventually built here, Bell Field, was
the home of Beaver football until 1953, when a new
facility was constructed just to the south of Bell
called Parker Stadium, named for OSU alum Charles
Parker, '08. Parker Stadium now has a new name, Reser
Stadium (the family includes several Oregon State
alumni), and much of the facility has been renovated
in the past five years. But the location remains the
same. The first game played at Parker was Nov. 14,
1953, against WSU, which resulted in a 7-0 win for the Beavers.
Portland's historic Multnomah (Civic) Stadium has
also been the site of many "home" games for the Beavers.
In the 1920s and 30s, it was common for OSU's schedule
to include two or three trips to Portland for "home"
games. The "Iron Man" game of Oct. 21, 1933, was played
here (see The Wall,
from 9/29/00) as well as the game against the UO in
which Lon Stiner's Iron Immortals were photographed
executing the "Pyramid Play."
From 1920 until 1968, the Beavers played many "home"
games at Multnomah Stadium in Portland.
--George
Edmonston, Jr. |
