My father was a letterman in the mid-30's. At that time, that whole area was a Dairy farm in pasture. He would get up early in the morning and put on 5 buckle overshoes and run in that pasture for off-season training on his own. Keep in mind in that era all farm work was done virtually by hand and small amounts of corn were raised to be picked by hand and soybeans were not grown much until the 50's. When Cyclone Stadium was built, it was a "jewel" in its timeframe and I believe financed with donations only, no public tax money. The biggest mistake they have made was allowing the "pc crowd" to take away the parking area immediately SW of the stadium with the Reiman Gardens. Not only does it have no connection to football or provide any physical benefit to the infrastructure of the stadium--think of all the lost revenue to the Ath. Dept. from lost parking fees. Get out the tree spades and dozers! Getting back to mamories of stadiums. In the 50's, my father as a letterman had a card that allowed him to get free tix at football games at the willcall window. I remember walking into Clyde Williams, students on the East side & Alumni on the West side and both ends maybe but usually not completely full. Clay Stapleton was the coach of some really competitve teams.
