Memorial Stadium: An unfair end?

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Six national championships were decided on its turf. Football battles were fought for the ages. Legends were born in men such as Bronko Nagurski, Bruce Smith, Paul Giel, Sandy Stephens, Bobby Bell and so many others.

And then, suddenly, the stadium stood empty, decaying and crumbling from the inside. In the autumn of 1982, the Gophers packed up and moved a couple of miles west -- off campus -- to the shiny new Metrodome. Before the end of the decade the old stadium was demolished.

Amazingly, in retrospect, there was little outcry from the very players who had built all of the memories inside Memorial Stadium. In fact, one of their own, Giel, then the university's athletic director, helped lead the charge to the Dome.

The Metrodome era all seems so misguided now. No championships were won in that building. In fact, the once-proud Gophers had more last-place finishes (nine) than first-division finishes (five).

In recent years a succession of university administrators pined for a return to on-campus, outdoor football. Finally, this autumn, that quest will come to an end as the Gophers inaugurate their new home, TCF Bank Stadium.

As the Gophers return to campus, and outdoors, the history of the grand old stadium's demise needs to be remembered. Even if it is a history that many associated with the university would like to forget.

"In retrospect, I don't feel terribly excited in the regard that it was one of the great things during my years at Minnesota," said C. Peter Magrath, the university president who recommended the move to the Dome in 1982. "I'm not sure I would put it at the top of my list."

Reasons why

A confluence of factors caused the actual decision to leave Memorial.

The Twins and Vikings entered the local sporting scene in 1961, and the Gophers almost overnight were no longer the only -- or even the biggest -- show in town. Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, which opened in 1958 for the minor league Millers, was home to both the Twins and Vikings.

But by the early 1970s, the stadium was seen as inadequate by both pro teams. The push for a new stadium ultimately focused on a domed stadium in downtown Minneapolis. Minneapolis businessman Harvey Mackay -- who became synonymous, along with Giel and Star Tribune columnist Sid Hartman -- for spearheading the Gophers' move to the Dome, said an off-campus stadium was never his first choice for the university.

Mackay said he first became involved in the stadium drive because he wanted to get the Gophers into a new domed stadium on campus that they would share with the Vikings. University records show that as far back as 1972, school officials reviewed a proposal for putting a dome on Memorial Stadium.

But Mackay said the plans for a domed stadium on campus were thwarted by neighborhood opposition and the prevailing sentiment of legislators that professional teams should not be playing on campus. So it was on to Plan B, which focused on finding a new home for the Twins and Vikings.

The Legislature approved funding for a new stadium in 1977, and the following year the newly formed Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission voted to build a domed stadium at its present site in downtown Minneapolis. Construction began in 1979, with the Twins and Vikings signing leases to start play in 1982.

The Gophers were targeted by Dome advocates as a likely third tenant. For good reason. By 1975 average attendance at Memorial Stadium had dipped to 31,440. It was back up to 43,035 in 1982, but that was down from successive 60,000-plus averages in 1960 and '61. The stadium by the late 1970s was badly in need of renovation.

"The place [Memorial] was pretty ratty," said Dick Larson, a Gophers quarterback and assistant coach under Murray Warmath. "Basically, we never even took recruits inside the building."

Still, the university didn't go easily. Magrath as late as October 1981 told regents he could not recommend a move to the Dome. But when the Dome offered a sweeter financial package, Magrath told regents in April 1982 that he now recommended the move. The regents voted 10-1 to move to the Dome for the 1982 season, but the move carried the stipulation that the first three years would be regarded as a trial. A final vote on where the Gophers would play long-term would come at the end of the 1984 season.

The opposition

Critics of the move had failed to mount an organized effort before the 1982 move. But the three-year trial provided a window to save Memorial, and Bill Semans, founder of the Crickett Theater, stepped forward to lead the effort.

Semans accused the university, and Giel in particular, of fabricating the true cost to renovate Memorial Stadium. While Giel cited remodeling costs between $10 million and $15 million, Semans said he received inside information from university officials siding with him that the actual costs were much lower.

But Semans was fighting an uphill battle and against forces -- and people -- far more powerful than his grassroots effort. Magrath acknowledged as much in an interview earlier this month.

"A lot of it was political," Magrath said of the battle. "Big cigars and powerful folks were pushing for a new stadium. ... I think I simply sensed an inevitablilty about it. The wheels were moving, and it was going to happen and there was a good justification for it at certain levels."

Semans said he retained a sense of hope that the Gophers would return to Memorial when the regents convened on Dec. 14, 1984, to consider whether to end the Dome trial, or sign a long-term lease. But then Gophers coach Lou Holtz showed for a 10-minute presentation that ended up sounding like a revival meeting for the Dome.

"You would have to be dead not to have a feeling for the tradition, the heritage, Bronko Nagurski, Bruce Smith ... but I think you have to be realistic," Holtz said. "I think we all want what's best for Minnesota."

He added: "No doubt about it, the athletes want to play in the Dome."

Recruits always asked about it, their preference clear. And he promised that soon, the Dome would be a tremendous home-field advantage.

"We're going to own that sucker when we walk in there," Holtz said.

It might have happened. But Holtz left for Notre Dame after the next season, taking with him much of the energy and excitement from the Gophers program.

The regents after Holtz's speech voted 10-1 to sign a long-term lease at the Dome. The lone dissenter was Wally Hilke, a university law student at the time and now a Twin Cities attorney. Hilke said his vote was based on the premise that football at a large public institution belongs on campus because of its role in bringing the university together. Plus, he said, there "was also a sentimental aspect to it."

But Hilke acknowledges his counterparts among the regents had solid reasons for voting for the move. The building needed repair, and although Hilke sided with Semans that the renovattion figures were inflated, there was a cost factor and the stadium was old and outdated. The university in 1984 was facing a budget crisis, and Magrath said that putting any money into the old stadium was "a non-option." The choice, he said, was the Metrodome or Memorial Stadium status quo.

"Memorial Stadium, as hallowed as it was, and encrusted with history, was not exactly in great shape," Magrath said.

Said Hilke: "The other 10 had good reasons to vote on extending the contract at the Metrodome. At the time I didn't think it was that terrible."

'Lost years'

The mystery to many is that former Gophers who made the memories inside Memorial didn't rush to support the effort to save the stadium. But that was probably because Giel, one of the school's football legends, was so strong in his support of the move to the Dome.

"To be honest, Paul Giel was athletic director and a good friend of mine," former Gophers star and influential alum Bob McNamara said. "I didn't really like [leaving Memorial] much, but I kind of thought -- I'm not going to use the word 'strong-armed' -- but I thought if Paul was that convinced it was a better deal, and guys like Harvey were behind it, then I supported the decision."

The physical end of the old stadium came when regents in 1989 voted to demolish the brick structure. The actual demolition came in 1992, and the University Aquatic Center now stands on the spot of the old football stadium.

"So much tradition," said former Gophers linebacker Desi Williamson, who spent his career in Memorial Stadium. "It's like a big old gigantic oak tree in your front lawn, and you chop it down and put something new in its place. It messes with the core and the foundation. I think the ghosts of those people are still running around, [Bernie] Bierman, Nagurski, [Clayton] Tonnemaker. I think they all rose out of their graves when that building went down."

The new TCF Bank Stadium sits about two blocks to the northeast, across the street from Williams Arena, which has managed to escape the wrecking ball. There is a buzz in the community again for Gophers football, or at least for the new stadium.

"It's going to be unbelievable," McNamara said.

"I'm glad they're going back on campus," said former Gophers coach Murray Warmath, who led the team to its last national championship in 1960, and last Big Ten title in 1967.

Semans, who has not attended a Gophers game since the move to the Dome, said he is able to share in the enthusiasm of the new stadium. He might even attend a game, he said.

"I still think -- no, I'm positive -- that it was a tragedy," Semans said of the move. "It resulted in lost years, and it didn't have to be. ... The new stadium will be great. But it wasn't where Bronko played, and it wasn't where Bierman coached."