Bring Blue-White Game To Memorial

By: Kevin Meacham

Posted: 4/17/08

This Saturday's Blue and White football game got me thinking. Yes, I know - that makes one of us.

But seriously, it occurred to me that, as we are not a major football school like Auburn, Nebraska or Wake Forest, the Blue and White game doesn't draw the type of interest even XL Center basketball games do.

Two years ago, 9,000 fans made the trek to watch a team coming off a 5-6 season play each other. Last year's game, featuring a 4-8 squad and the awesome, incomprehensible Modified Edsall Scoring System (defensive touchdowns are worth eight points, passing touchdowns worth negative-seven points), does not have an official attendance listed in its box score, but it couldn't have been much more.

And after a 9-3 season, a bowl trip and a pretty nice crop of returning and new players? It looks to me like the game could approach attendance of about 12,000-15,000, depending on weather.

Keep that number in mind.

In the meantime, about 200 yards to the right of where I'm currently sitting, there sits an empty lot filled with grass, dilapidated bleachers and an inexplicably working scoreboard.

Memorial Stadium's official uses are slim, though it sits in prime real estate in between Gampel Pavilion, the Sherman Complex, the Burton Complex and that one parking lot I can never find a spot in.

The ghosts of Dan Orlovsky, Shane Stafford, Terry Caulley's working right ACL and hundreds of players most UConn students don't know about are still there though. They will be until the space is filled by the long-talked about basketball practice facility. Or a parking garage. Either way.

In its glory days, Memorial Stadium was probably like a big high school football field. That's what it looks like every time I walk by. In its last game in November 2002, Memorial Stadium drew 15,332 to watch UConn pound Kent State.

Remember that projected number for the Blue and White game (and tag sale, if you've seen Randy Edsall's ridiculous, awesomely deadpan video on UconnHuskies.com)?

Yes, let this be a call to move the spring football game to Memorial Stadium permanently. In fact, let this be a part of a greater call to renovate Memorial Stadium and make it the major on-campus athletic facility it should be, all while preserving UConn traditions.

Heads up to the athletic department: You want students to come out and support the team four months before a real game is played? It will help if they only have to walk to the stadium.

Want to turn the weekend into a celebration of the poorly promoted tradition of UConn football? What better way to do it then to have the alumni drive up, take university-given tours of the beautiful football complex 30 feet away from the field, have a celebration dinner at some spot on campus and watch as a full stadium wakes up the lazy oversleepers in Hilltop Suites.

Want spectacle? How cool would it be for the captains to enter the field from a tunnel leading to the Burton Complex, to the sounds of 'O Fortuna'? Or all 40-odd defensive players to just the first nine seconds of 'Welcome to the Jungle?' Or Randy Edsall to Nelly Furtado's 'Promiscuous'?

What better atmosphere could there be than to actually hold a football game on campus, even if it is just one time in April?

Let's face it - Rentschler Field is the home of UConn football now. For the students, it's incredibly inconvenient in so many ways. The 35-minute drive on a Saturday morning is a bit of a chore for bleary-eyed students six hours removed from stumbling home from Carriage.

But here is a chance to turn the weekend from a footnote on the UConn sports calendar to a big-time party, as well as a chance to promote the hell out of a quasi-successful team.

Here's a chance to actually start a real tradition, as opposed to the lame, forced Rentschler efforts (holla if you hear me, Husky Walk!).

Most importantly, here's a chance for the university to give back to the tuition-paying students on campus, from whom they've taken half of our basketball games and all of our football games.

Not that it could happen right away. Despite the grass being in near-pristeen condition, the stands are a jumbled mess of concrete, and I'm sure the press box has been abandoned since 2003 and is now home to a family of rats with hearts of gold.

The basketball facility will have to be placed elsewhere - may I suggest UConn move soccer games from Morrone Stadium and build on that site?

The powers-that-be have probably already marked the site of Memorial Stadium with a red 'x,' making this all depressingly moot.

But for so much caterwauling - with reason - about UConn's lack of football tradition, this is a solution that actually embraces the program's past, while restoring a use for a central campus location.

Think about it when you're sitting in a quiet, one-third-filled stadium nowhere near a major university this weekend.

Kevin Meacham's column

runs every Thursday.

He can be contacted at

Kevin.Meacham@UConn.edu.