Opening Parker

By Kip Carlson

All that's left is 42 rows of concrete on one side of the field.

At Reser Stadium this Saturday afternoon, Oregon State and Washington State will play football in the same facility the two schools opened 65 years ago this fall. Look around, though, and those lower rows of the west grandstand are the only original parts of what was Parker Stadium when the Beavers and Cougars kicked off the first-ever game there on November 14, 1953.

FieldTurf and the Terrace, the double-decked east grandstand and the bowl around the south end zone, the Valley Football Center and the west grandstand expansion were all the most up-to-date things when added to OSU's gridiron home. But the bare-bones version of the stadium constructed in the early 1950s was considered quite the plush digs when it opened with Oregon State beating Washington State 7-0 on its first afternoon of football.

Part of that had to do with what Parker Stadium replaced.

The Beavers' previous home was Bell Field, a wooden structure located where Dixon Recreation Center now sits. It held approximately 22,000 fans in a large grandstand on the west side of the field, located next to 26^th Street, a smaller grandstand on the east side of the field alongside the Coleman Field baseball diamond, and a double-decked wooden semicircle of seats around the south end zone, along Washington Way. The seats were all covered and were all a distance from the field, as they followed the edge of Bell Field's oval track; the facility was also the home of the Beavers' track and field team.

By the 1940s, Bell Field had become more and more splintery and rickety. Plans to replace it began to formulate in 1948, and by 1949 the athletic department and fans had begun a fundraising drive for the project. Charles Parker, a Portland contractor and 1908 Oregon State graduate, was chairman of the drive's executive committee. The cost was expected to be about $300,000.

Plans called for concrete stands that would be close to the playing field, a design made possible because the track and field facility would remain at Bell Field. Artists renderings showed how the stadium could eventually look when expanded to 50,000 seats.

The fundraising drive involved Oregon State College alumni, students and supporters across the state and the nation. In the winter of 1952-53, the Corvallis Gazette-Times published a photo of OSC athletic director Spec Keene accepting a donation of $1,000 from Corvallis Moose Lodge governor Virgil House. The accompanying story noted the donation "typifies the spirit that will be needed to complete new improvements planned on the 25,000-seat structure that will result in more and more home games for Corvallis."

By then, about $350,000 in donations had been received and another $55,000 had been pledged. The money collected included $24,000 from Corvallis, $110,000 from Benton County and $40,000 from the Oregon State campus.

By the summer of 1953, Parker Stadium was nearing completion of its first phase. In the beginning, there were approximately 22,000 seats - 42 rows on each sideline, 18 rows in the north end zone and 15 rows in the south end zone, concession/restroom buildings in each of the four corners, and a two-story press box perched above the west sideline. Conjuring up the sightlines of old Bell Field, one Gazette-Times story offered, "There will be no roof this year which will gladden the hearts of those who hate to sit behind posts."

For decades, Oregon State and Oregon had played may of their home games against big-name foes in Portland's Multnomah Stadium, drawing from the larger population base than in their home cities. For the 1953 season, the Beavers weren't slated to play in Corvallis until a November 14 date against Washington State.

It was hoped the new stadium would be ready for that contest, but the field wasn't planted until the second week of September. A story on the new turf described it as "a special fast-growing grass seed … it is expected that ample turf will cover the field for the initial contest which is still two months away." Despite that optimistic outlook, Corvallis Gazette-Times editor Robert Ingalls placed a bet with Richard Adams, the superintendent of Oregon State's physical plant, that the field wouldn't be ready for that mid-November game against Washington State.

Opening their long-awaited new home would be a day to remember, and the way the 1953 season was going, the Beavers could use any kind of bright spot. As the autumn began, the United Press' Howard Applegate wrote, "Two big building jobs are underway on the Oregon State college campus today, a new football stadium and a football team to play in it. The stadium is scheduled to be ready for the homecoming game against Washington State Nov. 14. When the football team will be ready is anyone's guess.

"As Coach Kip Taylor put it, 'It will still be tough.'"

The Beavers had 20 lettermen returning, but just four of those were of the two-year variety. And gone was Sam Baker, Oregon State's all-time leading rusher.

Oregon State began the campaign with five straight losses, and the Beavers hadn't scored a single point in defeats at the hands of fourth-ranked UCLA (41-0), 14th-ranked California (26-0), Washington (28-0), Stanford (21-0) and 13th-ranked Southern California (37-0).

The games against Cal and Stanford had been played in Portland; the contest against Stanford had drawn a crowd of just 8,005, fueling speculation that more and more home games would find their way into the new stadium in Corvallis. Indeed, by the end of the season, it was announced the Beavers' 1954 game against UCLA would be moved from Portland to Parker Stadium.

OSC finally got in the win column with a 19-0 victory at Idaho, then was drubbed 34-6 at sixth-ranked Michigan State. At long last, it was time to play in Corvallis and open the new Parker Stadium.

"The game itself looms as a tossup," reported the Oregon Journal. "Most of the experts favor WSC by a slight margin, but Beaver Coach Kip Taylor has predicted his men will win. However, anything can happen in this series and the Cougars would like nothing better than to put a crimp in the festivities with a victory."

In the week leading up to the inaugural game against Washington State, KPTV sportscaster Bob Blackburn featured the new stadium on his "Sports Den" television show. After its late planting, the grass had taken root quickly; a photo in the Gazette-Times showed Ingalls paying off his bet with Adams by chomping down on a chocolate-covered pickle being offered by the Oregon State groundsman.

The Oregon Journal's Marlowe Branagan, in his "Tower Lights" column, noted the difficulties Oregon State had encountered thus far in 1953, then opined of the Beavers, "They'll be higher than taxes come Saturday as they move into an ultra-plush plant which takes over for old Bell field as the home of OSC grid machines from this point onward … Parker stadium has been a dream of many years. It has been a tough battle to bring it into actuality. Some of the well-wishers who joined the parade to attain it left when preliminary plans were completed.

"Others stayed long enough to discover there was a difference in dreaming of a football stadium and seeing the dream come true. It has taken some work by many and much work by a few to get Parker stadium ready for Oregon State college. No one will actually miss old Bell field. It has, long since, outlived its usefulness. But the memories of a football past will surge up to greet the hopes of a future come Saturday down Corvallis way."

Oregon State's alumni association and athletic board had both recommended the facility be named for Parker, who had been instrumental in making it a reality. The formal name of the new gridiron wasn't clear when it opened - the cover of the game program listed the facility as Parker Field, while the facility became known as Parker Stadium until it was renamed after the 1998 season.

A crowd of 15,000-20,000 was expected for the Homecoming clash, and in the days before the game there were plenty of sideline seats available, priced at $3.60. Before the game, the weekend's activities would include a noise parade and a sign contest among the campus living groups. A number of prizes would be given away to fans at the game, including two beef steers, a TV set, boxes of Hood River apples and Rogue River pears and a set of deluxe auto tires.

Finally, there would be a dedication ceremony would take place just before the 1:30 p.m. kickoff, with OSC President A.L. Strand and Parker taking part. One section of the stands would be designated the Peavy Memorial section in honor of the late Dr. George W. Peavy, who had been both President and Dean of Forestry at Oregon State; donations from lumbermen and forestry leaders had made that section possible.

The day of the stadium's debut would be an even bigger occasion for one Beaver. The citizens of Dallas declared it "Wes Ediger Day" in honor of Oregon State's junior end and approximately 500 of them caravanned the 20 miles down U.S. Highway 99W to see him play that afternoon against Washington State.

It was appropriate, then, that Ediger's catch of a 50-yard pass from Jim Withrow, a junior from Van Nuys, Calif., late in the second quarter set up the game's only score, taking the ball to the Cougar 1-yard line. That left it to Chuck Brackett, a senior halfback from La Grande, to score Parker Stadium's first points on a one-yard plunge through the line, and Ediger added the first conversion for a 7-0 lead.

The Beavers would threaten again and again throughout the windy but dry afternoon, but that would be the only scoring in front of a crowd of 13,500.

"Actually, the game was so one-sided that the final count could easily have been 28 or 35 to 0," wrote Don McLeod of The Oregonian. "Although the Beavers could snare only that one TD in the opening half, they threatened to score so many times that the partisan customers actually became hoarse from giving out with the old, familiar 'we want a touchdown' chant."

Ralph Carr, a senior halfback from Oceanside, Calif., rushed for 107 yards and had a pair of interceptions for the Beavers, who outgained the Cougars 366-118. Ediger finished with five catches for 83 yards and Withrow was 10-for-21 passing for 134 yards.

It made for a happy ending to a big afternoon.

"This was a day of pure delight for partisan Beavers, who in seven earlier contests had lost six and won one," wrote Hal Laman of the Oregon Journal. "And the bitter memory of those first five 'goose eggs' in which the green Beaver team absorbed five straight lickings was eased considerably with this dedication victory over the Cougars. Beaver fans swarmed out of the concrete stands onto the field and pounded the joyous Beavers on their backs as they filed up the ramp out of the plant."

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