Story posted Oct. 26, 2016, but written as if you
read this on or after 11/6/2016.
And then there were two.
Two grass football fields.
Whitworth University’s Pine Bowl in Spokane and the University of Puget
Sound’s Peyton Field at Baker Stadium in Tacoma are the only grass
fields remaining in the Northwest Conference.
In this 2016 season, the Linfield Wildcats played on both: Oct. 22, at
the Pine Bowl and Nov. 5, on Peyton Field.
Whitworth is looking to replace its Pine Bowl grass with artificial turf
as part of a major upgrade of the facility, according to “The Campaign
for Whitworth” fund-raising information posted at the university’s
website.
However, UPS’s grass Peyton Field is safe. Wildcatville has
learned the university has no plans to put artificial turf on either
Peyton Field or East Field, where UPS plays soccer and lacrosse.
This brings us to Linfield’s Maxwell Field, sometimes called the
Catdome, at Memorial Stadium on campus in McMinnville.
In 2004, Linfield removed the Maxwell Field grass and replaced it with
artificial turf. In 2014, the artificial turf was replaced with new
artificial turf.
Replacing the grass in 2004 was momentous because in 1935 Linfield
became the first Oregon college with a grass football field.
Not even the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and others,
including the University of Portland (which no longer plays football)
and small colleges had grass football fields before Linfield. (Portland
State University did not exist in 1935.)
Henry Lever (photo), Linfield’s football coach (1930-1938, 1940-1942) and
athletic director (1930-1949), was the key reason Linfield quit playing
football on dirt and sawdust and started playing on grass.
Sports editor L. H. Gregory’s column in the Oct. 21, 1936, Oregonian
said, “The change over the Linfield college football field over a year
ago from old mud and sawdust nice, springy turf cost the enormous sum of
$350.”
“ ‘And we didn’t use any secret recipe,” said Coach Henry W. Lever, the
many mainly responsible for making Linfield the first Oregon college to
pull its football out of the mud.
“ ‘Any other school that wants to replace hog wallow football with the
turf kind can do the same for not much more than $600 at most, provided
the field is already graded and drained. That’s essential, of course,
and runs into money.”
“ ‘At schools like the University of Oregon and Oregon State college
their fields are already graded and drained, just as ours was under the
old mud arrangement, and that makes it simple. One little tip –
concentrate on bluegrass. We seeded to both bluegrass and bent, but the
bluegrass costs deep and gives your turf solidity. Anyway, that’s our
experience.’ ”
The column quotes Lever saying, “We didn’t seed our field until May of
1935, and played on it the same fall,” explained Coach Lever. “That was
last season, and we had four games, three of which were played in
old-fashioned downpours of Oregon rain, but it held up wonderfully.”
It was a dramatic change to compete in a football game on Maxwell Field
grass instead of dirt and sawdust. But, grass Maxwell Field was Jekyll
and Hyde.
When the weather was good and the Maxwell Field was dry, it was very
good.
But, when the weather was rainy, the field was wet and could and
often did turn into a quagmire.
In 2005, Linfielder Marv Heater (Class of 1951) who played football for
the Wildcats coached by Paul Durham, told Wildcatville the “smell of
Maxwell Field sticks quite vividly in my memory. It was unique because
of the type of fertilizer that Steve Thomas used on the field. (Good old
turkey droppings.).
“We were happy after a game in the mud to get to the shower and wash
away the small and grime. We probably washed half of the top soil from
the field into the drains throughout the season.”
Steve Thomas (Class of 1948) was an exceptional groundskeeper for
Linfield from 1948 until his untimely death in 1977.
Turkey dropping as fertilizer for Maxwell Field were not used Steve
Thomas’ entire groundskeeping tenure. But, with or without “turkey,”
Maxwell Field had a special smell and stickiness which existed until the
grass was replaced with artificial turf.
Maxwell Field’s grass is gone, but some can still see it and smell it.
Photos:
--Pine Bowl at Whitworth University, Spokane. By Tommy Butler for
Wildcatville. Oct. 22, 2016.
--Peyton Field at Baker Stadium, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma. By
Wildcatville. Nov. 8, 2014.
--Henry Lever, Linfield 1938 Oak Leaves yearbook.
--Henry Lever, Linfield 1938 Oak Leaves yearbook.
--Willamette at Linfield football on Maxwell Field. By Wildcatville.
Nov. 15, 1975.
Postscripts:
--When Maxwell Field grass was removed in 2004, some of it was saved as
sod and planted to the left as you enter the auxiliary entry gate (to
the far left as you face back of Memorial Stadium) off on Lever Street.
Saving the grass and replanting it was thanks to Steve Davis (Class of
1972), Linfield Athletics Hall of Famer.
--Steve Thomas was a member of Linfield’s 1947 NW Conference championship baseball team coached by Henry Lever.
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For brevity, the 2003 story below was edited by Wildcatville in 2016.
Linfield moves to make mud a thing of the past
By John Nolen, Oregonian, Aug. 23, 2003
Mud so thick and slick that players couldn't take two steps without
falling down.
A helicopter hovering for hours to dry the field after a snowfall.
Conditions so unplayable that three national championship games were
moved to a nearby high school.
Such memories of Maxwell Field are part of Linfield College's football
lore. But tradition or not, such miserable game conditions should end by
next year.
Maxwell, home of the college football program with a national-record 47
consecutive winning seasons, is getting artificial turf.
Fund raising is under way for $1.1 million to reconfigure the football
field and surrounding track and replace the natural grass with FieldTurf
in time for the 2004 season.
Jay Locey, a Wildcats coach or assistant coach since 1983, said the
present field, rebuilt in 1986, holds up well during September and
October.
"Everything's fine -- until we get a good rain," he said. "But one day
of that can destroy the field."
Ad Rutschman, the former Wildcats coach now an assistant under Locey,
remembers playing Pacific University one afternoon in 1986.
So does Doug
Hire, who was an all-American lineman for Rutschman.
"It was the muddiest game I remember," said Rutschman, 72, who has been
associated with Linfield football for almost 40 years.
Said Hire: "Conditions were so bad you couldn't take two steps without
falling down."
Steve Davis, another former player and a former Linfield sports information director,
recalls when a helicopter was brought in to dry the field for a 1970s
playoff game.
"It snowed Monday or Tuesday, and late in the week we hovered a
helicopter for the entire day," Davis said. "It worked. The field was
dry enough for Saturday's game."
In 1982, 1984 and 1986 -- Linfield's national championship seasons --
the field was unplayable for the championship games. So all three finals
had to be moved to nearby McMinnville High School.
Not only will the natural grass be replaced with FieldTurf, but also the
entire field layout, including the track and field oval, will be moved
12 feet east.
"It needs to move because the eighth lane of the track is right up
against the grandstand, which is dangerous," Rutschman said.
News that artificial turf would replace natural grass drew mixed
reactions from former Linfield players.
"Some guys were saying, 'You're kidding, give up the grass field for
artificial turf?' " said Larry Doty, a former Wildcats running back.
"I remember one pretty mucky playoff game in 1978," Doty said. "Those
conditions helped us out that day."
The Wildcats also won in the mud because of a quarterback named David
Lindley, Locey said.
Lindley, in 2-1/2 seasons (1984-86) as a starter, guided the Wildcats to
a 25-2 record and two NAIA national championships.
"He had large hands and was so good in the mud that he had a definite
advantage," Locey said. "He was a mudder."
It was an overtime loss to Central of Iowa in the mud during the 2000
NCAA Division III playoffs that triggered the move to replace the
natural grass, Locey said.
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