ESPN: An ode to the Kibbie Dome, college football's weirdest stadium

BleedGopher

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per ESPN:

THE HIGHWAY THAT connects Pullman, Washington, and Moscow, Idaho, is roughly nine miles. It's a well-known stretch for those on the Palouse, cutting through the rolling hills and wheat fields of the region.

Other than the turnoff for the tiny Moscow-Pullman Regional Airport, there aren't many notable landmarks between the college towns of Washington State University and the University of Idaho. It's mostly farmland, but when making the drive from the west, one large white structure stands out.

It comes into view about a half-mile before the state border, dwarfing everything around it on the University of Idaho campus. Most first-timers assume it's an airplane hangar. Students joke it's a giant beer can on its side.

Officially, it's called the ASUI-Kibbie Activity Center, but since opening 50 years ago this week as the home to Idaho football, it's mostly been known by a different name: The Kibbie Dome.

It's also known as the weirdest college football stadium in America -- and one of the most unusual sports venues in the world.

"Here's the irony: the Kibbie Dome is not really a dome," said Alec Holser, a founding partner of Opsis Architecture in Portland, Oregon, who led the 2011 renovation of the building. "There are other geodesic domes made of wood, but this is actually a vault.

"It's an arched-shaped continuous [roof] like a blimp hangar. In fact, one of the few other structures of similar gargantuan size were the blimp hangars built in World War II."

On its 50th anniversary, it's time to celebrate all of the weirdness that makes the Kibbie Dome one of a kind.


Go Gophers!!
 

Reminds me of the dome I played in/attended games in a bunch in high school. The Superior Dome (aka the Yooper Dome) in Marquette, MI. Still standing as the home for Northern Michigan football, and is the largest wooden dome on Earth. I think they are measuring that by the diameter of the circular Superior Dome, while Kibbie is more of a quonset hut design.

Old school Astroturf was murder to play on back in the late 90s, but the place has character and gave small town high school kids a chance to play somewhere that felt like a little pro stadium.

 

Idaho bucked the trend by being the rare FBS football team to voluntarily drop to FCS. Idaho was an FCS team from the late seventies to the mid-nineties but then moved up to FBS for the next 22 seasons. They were not very successful as an FBS team but they did manage to make 3 bowls (actually 3 appearances in the same bowl) and win all of them over their last 20 FBS years.
 

Idaho bucked the trend by being the rare FBS football team to voluntarily drop to FCS. Idaho was an FCS team from the late seventies to the mid-nineties but then moved up to FBS for the next 22 seasons. They were not very successful as an FBS team but they did manage to make 3 bowls (actually 3 appearances in the same bowl) and win all of them over their last 20 FBS years.
Interesting. Never would have guessed they won 3 bowls.
 

It has to be tough to recruit players to WASU. Is there much to see around Pullman WA - Moscow ID?

Does it have a moon colony feel?

It has to be boring enough that the Pirate Mike Leach escaped to Mississippi State in Starkville, an aptly named town.
 


Enjoying the uniqueness of the Kibbie Dome is kind of how Minnesotans look at the Metrodome. Sure it wasn't great, but it was ours and it's special to us.
 

Enjoying the uniqueness of the Kibbie Dome is kind of how Minnesotans look at the Metrodome. Sure it wasn't great, but it was ours and it's special to us.
Said no Minnesotan ever! Well, maybe if you are an older diehard Twins fan you might!
 


Said no Minnesotan ever! Well, maybe if you are an older diehard Twins fan you might!
Went 2 times to the dome. I went to a Twins game in the mid 80s as a kid. Then went to a Christian Ponder vs Queen Bay game. Had no idea what I was looking at as a kid, just fun to go to a game. Had no idea what I was looking at as an adult because I decided to get drunk.
 



Here’s their local news story about the ESPN article:
 

If you want to geek out on this like I do, here’s a very grainy video from the company who built it:
 

There are quite a few domes utilized at the FCS level:
For FBS, UTSA has the Roadrunners at the AlamoDome and Syracuse plays at the CarrierDome.

In the NFL there were:
The Saints have the only dome still in use. NFL stadiums with roofs include:
 

Looks like the new Chernobyl sarcophagus. The narrator takes me right back to third grade movie projector cart day.
 







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