Alumni Field evokes memories

This was a nostalgic week as I turned the pages of the NEWS, from inductees into the University of Maine Hall of Fame to the photo of the late president John F. Kennedy on the Orono campus for Homecoming festivities 30 years ago.

Those items flooded me with warm memories. It is Homecoming Weekend again. I remember those weekends well. Dances, parties, football, parties. The ’60s were something.

We still had panty raids, social pro, curfews and no-slacks rules for coeds; single-sex dorms, serenading the newly pinned, and fraternity pranks.

We bundled up in stadium coats with white mums provided by thoughtful dates. We sat in special sections at Alumni Field, surrounded by friends, cheering Hall of Famer Dave Cloutier.

The all-conference running back who captained the ’61 team had us yelling and stomping our feet. There were intense rivalries back when Maine played Colby, Bates and Bowdoin and the Yankee Conference teams of New England.

With today’s streamlined approach to athletics, it is a tribute to Cloutier’s talent that he remains on Maine’s list of top all-time performers.

He is third in scoring for a single game with 24 points in a ’61 Vermont game that also ties him for fourth with most touchdowns in a game. He is 15th in career rushing yards. He set those marks wearing heavy leather shoes and awkward, bulky cotton uniforms; no plastic high-tops or nylon-mesh jerseys for Cloutier.

I remember the October day that Kennedy came to campus to accept an honorary degree and make a major foreign policy speech. I was one of 15,000 who filled the stands of Alumni Field in Orono to see and hear the man who was leading a hopeful, eager nation during that era known as Camelot.

We were innocents, not yet tarnished by his assassination or those that followed; not tarnished by the horrors of Vietnam or the shame of Watergate.

Drugs were something you bought to make you well, not something you stole that made you high. Respect was something you earned, not something you demanded. Guns were carried by soldiers, policemen and hunters. Aids meant people who helped people. We felt safe and secure despite the threat of nuclear war. We were in good hands.

We cheered Dave Cloutier from the same stadium we cheer Jemal Murph today; as proud of him as we are Murph, a Yankee Conference Player of the Week.

Sitting in those same stands, we cheered John F. Kennedy. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Like that stadium built in 1946, right after World War II.

This is probaby as good a time as any to suggest that alumni take a look at the 47-year-old stands on which they sit this Homecoming Saturday.

You’ve sat there before. Look closely, alums. That stadium needs help.

I don’t want to make anyone nervous because I am not an engineer or a safety expert. But when I walk up those steps and the wood warps under my 108 pounds, I worry about others who follow.

Take a close look. Watch the movement of the structure as foot touches wood. I know things are supposed to bend a little, but it looks to me like the steps bendeth too much.

I’m not going to say the stadium at Alumni Field is an accident waiting to happen because I know university officials are keeping a watchful eye on things.

But I do feel secure in saying the stadium has served its purpose well for 47 years, and now a new one is needed.

How could this be accomplished without dipping into the hard-strapped university budget, or begging for money from the multi-million-dollar campaign now underway?

How about a special Homecoming Weekend to erect a stadium with all volunteers and donated supplies?

Let’s see. Maine boasts one of the best engineering schools in the country. Surely an alum who is into architectural design could draw up the plans with an alum who is a structural engineer.

Should it be made of wood? There are plenty of pulp-and-paper graduates involved in the forest products industry. Steel girders? Cement? Surely there are alums who own construction companies and concrete plants.

Restroom, lockerroom, and pressroom facilities? Just think of all the alums in the hardware, paint-and-paper, furniture, rug, and computer businesses.

Concession facilities? Find alums in the food business. Need places for hundreds of volunteers to stay? Alums in the motel business.

Wouldn’t it be great to raise a stadium without the university or the taxpayer having to raise the money? What a tribute it would be to Maine and her people.