ROGERS FIELD

SP-112, 72481

WSU Cougars (1892-1969) (Pacific-8 Conference, NCAA) Idaho Vandals (1969-70) - NCAA

Rogers Field was an outdoor athletic stadium on the campus of Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. It was the home venue of the WSU Cougars football and track teams until the fire of April 1970. It was replaced by the concrete Martin Stadium in 1972.

During what came to be its final WSU season in 1969, Rogers Field was also the home for the neighboring Idaho Vandals. Idaho's Neale Stadium, also wooden, had been condemned during the summer of 1969 and was to be rebuilt with concrete grandstands, ready in 1970 (or 1971). Idaho played its limited Palouse home schedule in 1969 (2 games) at Rogers Field, and due to delays in their project had planned on playing there again in 1970 (4 games). During the ten-game schedules of the late 1960s, the WSU football team split its usual allotment of four home games equally between Spokane and Pullman (2 games each).

A suspicious fire significantly damaged the south grandstand and press box of Rogers Field late on Saturday, April 4, 1970, the first day of spring break. A definitive cause of the blaze was not determined, but was widely believed to have been arson. A track & field meet with Oregon State had been held at the stadium earlier in the day. Idaho's idle (and condemned) Neale Stadium had burned less than five months earlier in November 1969, also a suspected arson.

Because of the reduced capacity of Rogers Field, the WSU Cougars played all of their home football games at Joe Albi Stadium in Spokane in 1970, which had been recently outfitted with AstroTurf. Requiring less seating capacity, the Idaho Vandals opted to stay put and played their home games at the partially destroyed stadium in Pullman in 1970.

The game between the teams, the so-called "Displaced Bowl," was easily won by WSU on September 19th in Spokane. It ended a ten game losing streak for Jim Sweeney's Cougars, dating back to the 1969 season opener. The victory over the Vandals was the only one for WSU in 1970, who would remain winless until the third game of the 1971 season. With the new stadium in Pullman under construction in 1971, the Cougars played their full home schedule in Spokane.

After playing a home game in Joe Albi Stadium in late September, the Idaho Vandals returned to their campus in Moscow, to play in their new "Idaho Stadium," originally an outdoor venue. It debuted on October 9, 1971, with a Vandal victory over Idaho State. The stadium was enclosed four years later and renamed the Kibbie Dome.

Unused 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" standard size chrome postcard.

Dist. by J. Boyd Ellis