Let’s "talk" about
Linfield’s Maxwell Field, sometimes called the Catdome, at Memorial Stadium on
campus in McMinnville. It's where the Wildcats play their home football games.
In 2020, Linfielder Bob
Haack, who played football for the 1965, 1966, 1967 (coach Paul Durham) and
1968 (coach Ad Rutschman) Wildcats, said about home games on Maxwell: "We
played in horrible mud!"
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, 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.
With this article:
-- A photo related to Linfield game on muddy
Maxwell on an evening in 1965. McMinnville N-R photos.
--A photo of Willamette at Linfield football on
afternoon of Nov. 15, 1975, on muddy Maxwell. Wildcatville photo.
