So long Shotwell: Mud, Sweat and Tears
11/5/2016 8:52:00 AM | Football
By GRANT BOONE
Voice of the Wildcats
ABILENE – There is nothing special about Shotwell Stadium. Never has been. It's a pair of parallel concrete seating structures in a barren patch of a nondescript landscape. But the men who have played and coached football there for Abilene Christian University and the magic they've made? That is another story entirely.
ACU's 57-year history at Shotwell began with a delay of game. After using Fair Park as their home field for a dozen years after World War II, the Wildcats were scheduled to host Lamar University (then called Lamar Tech) on Oct. 3, 1959, at the brand-new facility originally known as Public Schools Stadium. But a downpour that Saturday soaked the city and the stadium's natural grass surface. So to keep the new sod from being trampled under the heavier foot of college-sized players, the game was moved to the old digs at Fair Park where the Wildcats lost to Lamar, 8-7, on what Optimist reporter Royce Caldwell called "a sea of mud."
To read the rest of this story, click here.
Voice of the Wildcats
ABILENE – There is nothing special about Shotwell Stadium. Never has been. It's a pair of parallel concrete seating structures in a barren patch of a nondescript landscape. But the men who have played and coached football there for Abilene Christian University and the magic they've made? That is another story entirely.
ACU's 57-year history at Shotwell began with a delay of game. After using Fair Park as their home field for a dozen years after World War II, the Wildcats were scheduled to host Lamar University (then called Lamar Tech) on Oct. 3, 1959, at the brand-new facility originally known as Public Schools Stadium. But a downpour that Saturday soaked the city and the stadium's natural grass surface. So to keep the new sod from being trampled under the heavier foot of college-sized players, the game was moved to the old digs at Fair Park where the Wildcats lost to Lamar, 8-7, on what Optimist reporter Royce Caldwell called "a sea of mud."
To read the rest of this story, click here.
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