letterwinners - Rutgers

194
The following excerpt came from the game program of the first game played in
the “New” Rutgers Stadium, on September 3, 1994. Written by former Sports
Information Director Bob Smith, this story chronicles the history of Rutgers
Football and the stadium(s) it called home.
RUTGERS STADIUM
Far removed from midwestern corn fields where Hollywood created a
baseball dream, Rutgers realized a football dream when the new Rutgers Stadium
opened for the 1994 season.
The completion of the stadium, expanded to accommodate 41,500 fans,
coincided neatly with the celebration of the 125th year of the game which, Rutgers
and Princeton inaugurated in 1869.
The new stadium, financed by a New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority
bond issue proposal, which was approved by the legislature and then Governor
Jim Florio in January of 1992, was kicked off officially on March 9, 1993.
The historic groundbreaking ceremony drew over 500 as a host of state
dignitaries spoke glowingly of the meaning for the University and the state. The
stadium project would include expansion to nearly 42,000 seats with all the
amenities of a first-class facility. Permanent lights, lit to a level of 150 foot-candles,
will make possible night games and television broadcast. A two-tiered
press box seats over 200. The main concourse includes eight concession
stands and the stadium will be equipped with a state-of-the-art sound system.
A huge, new scoreboard towers over the south endzone.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, then-governor Jim Florio said "there is
no doubt that what is good for Rutgers is good for New Jersey."
Rutgers president Francis L. Lawrence noted that "this grand old stadium...has
been of great service to the people of New Jersey and this new project
will provide 800 jobs in New Jersey. New Jersey is a great state that
deserves the best in every aspect, in every area, including athletics." Athletic
Director Fred Gruninger called the event a "real happening."
One hundred and twenty-five years ago on November 6, 1869, Rutgers
and Princeton played the first intercollegiate football game in New Brunswick
on College Field, which is now the site of the College Avenue Gymnasium and its
parking lot. And, while Rutgers won that initial contest, 6-4, Princeton would
dominate the early days of this intrastate rivalry.
The Tigers won the second game at home a week later and went on to win
the next 24 games through 1897, holding the Scarlet Knights scoreless in 22
of the 25 victories. Getting together again in 1911, Princeton added five more
wins before the series lapsed in 1915. A leap of 18 years, a tumultuous time
in this country's history, elapsed before the next meeting, but the pattern did
not change as Princeton took the 1933, 1935, 1936 and 1937 games, all on
its home grounds, as were all but six of the 34 games.
Those six games had been played at the site of the original game, College
Field, where contests were staged through 1891, after which Neilson Field became
the home of the Scarlet until 1938.
The stage was set for "the game that would live forever" (according to
Jimmie Fleming, sports editor of the New Brunswick Home News) and a game
that a New York news commentator rated one of the four principal historical
events of 1938, along with the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, the Munich
agreement and the wars in China and Spain. But, the story began a few years
earlier.
Aerial view of the site
of the first intercollegiate
game (open area)
with Neilson Field in
foreground.
(Inset) Plaque at College Avenue
Gymnasium
honoring participants in the
1869 Rutgers-Princeton
game and William Leggett,
1872, Rutgers’ first football
captain.
Through the presidency of John Martin Thomas (1925-30) and the brief 18-
month tenure of Philip Milledoler Brett, Rutgers experienced a severe identity
crisis. "For a quarter of a century," wrote historian Richard P. McCormick,
"Rutgers had been in the throes of transformation from a small college to a
multi-dimensional university, from an essentially private institution to an instrumentality
of the state." That drama would continue even while the athletic picture
began to improve. It would play itself out against a background generally
called the Great Depression.
Robert C. Clothier was named president in December, 1931, and George
E. Little became the athletic director in April, 1932. It is with these two visionaries
that the story of Rutgers Stadium begins.
Both saw that the effectiveness of the instruction in physical education
was being seriously hampered by lack of space and deteriorating facilities. Neilson
Field, the football home site that had replaced College Field and the home
of the Rutgers football since 1892, was in disrepair. Though indoor facilities
were sufficient (College Avenue Gymnasium was completed in January 1932
and held athletic contests as well as a concert by Paul Robeson ('19) but if the
overall program was to be strengthened, space had to be found.
Feeling that the University had weathered the initial phases of the Depression,
Clothier dispatched Little on a survey of suitable land and on November 7,
1934, the determined athletic director recommended the purchase of a tract
of land covering 256 acres across the Raritan River that included the disbanded
New Brunswick Country Club golf course and the Adrian Vermeule
properties. The Board of Trustees, noting that it was a daring move, nevertheless
adopted the proposal and bought the land for less than $100,000.
Though the stadium area, a natural ravine, was included in the purchase,
the original proposal did not include construction of a stadium. The development
of the area would provide recreational areas for students and considerable
acreage for future needs. The Federal government approved an initial
grant of $320,000 on November 13, 1935, and work men began the enormous
job of developing the River Road campus. The project was to carry a
cost of $418,514 with the University contributing $98,390. It would provide
work for 387 workers for one year.
A year later, November, 1936, a second Works Progress Administration
grant of $143,841 was approved with Rutgers adding $107,530. In January,
1938, an additional grant of $237,000 was made by the WPA which brought
the total of the three grants to $995,707 while Rutgers had appropriated
$239,000, including the cost of the site.
All this played out against the background of the Depression. Franklin D.
Roosevelt's Second New Deal had created the Works Progress Administration,
a massive relief program that derived from the administration's belief that
"human dignity was diminished under direct relief programs but enriched by
programs that provided work in exchange for relief."
Though controversial, the WPA program was far more comprehensive
than earlier relief efforts. The program would spend more than $411 billion
before it was canceled in 1943. According to historian Edward Ellis, the WPA,
employing more than 8.5 million people on nearly a million and a half projects,
"built 651,087 miles of highways, roads and streets; constructed, repaired or
improved 124,031 bridges; erected 124,110 public buildings; created 8,192
public parks; built or improved 853 airports."