There have been a few great threads like this one on old Memorial Stadium over the years on GH, and usually make a few comments in those threads.
USC 1980 - was not at this one
Like several who have posted, I was also at the 1977 Michigan win and the second to last game, the 1981 win vs OSU. Both were great days.
A lot of the comments resonate with me, but some going back to the early days are all very interesting to me as I had not set foot in the stadium prior to 1975.
My dad was a graduate who attended the 1961 Rose Bowl as a senior. He expected and craved a return to Gopher glory his whole life after that time and it never happened before he died in 2016, but at least he got to see outdoor football again on campus for a few years.
In my youth, my Gopher worshiping father was was sent into voluntary exile to the cornfields 100 miles southwest of the U of M, but at least he did his best to get the family to one game a year, and it was always a Big Ten game.
My first game was the win vs. Wisconsin game in 1975, attended just with my dad. As my brothers got older more of the family went to the rest of the games, which I tried to recall after re-reading this thread. The family was on a budget so we always sat in the closed end a bit above the big tunnel the band came rushing in through, below us. The crown of the field, noted by others was very visible from there.
I went through the season record logs to try to verify which games we went to and realized I must have missed a year. I must have been pretty busy, probably on a Scout camp trip in 1979, since I do not think I went with the family that year. I was at 1975 Wisconsin, 1976 Iowa, 1977 Michigan, 1978 Iowa, 1979??? missed, 1980 Michigan (AC ran wild big loss), 1981 Ohio State.
A few things that stood out were the stark change from the worn, faded ugly 3M fake turf to the lush green natural grass that returned in 1977.
Someone else noted that the Purdue Ross- Ade Stadium was a very similar, and I always agreed from TV views, but having been to Purdue later, that place is an ugly erector set shell/ hole in the ground from the outside, with no massive brick exterior presence like Memorial Stadium had from the street.
At Christmas this year, my brother brought one of those previously noted gold cowboy style hats, with the maroon M in the front down from the museum my mom keeps in her house. He recalls it being purchased on one of those trips. I went upstairs and found my old Marion Barber #41 jersey purchased at the stadium. I do not recall the cigar smell, as I was probably conditioned to it, but the hot chocolate stuck with me.
A later, almost spiritual experience not unlike those others have noted, being around the stadium after the move to the Metrodome. I used to go to the old Station 19/ Sparky's bar in the early 90s. More than once we (or maybe just me) would leave the bar walk through the big arch and sit on the what little remained of thefield, late at night. The field was actually gone, just a small parking lot and the swimming complex sitting on the field but the seating bowl was right there. I used to drive through the arch into that parking lot area and sit there once in a while in the final weeks. In the last days when the parking lot was still active, I drove in there, parked and went up and sat on a bench at sunrise one day for a while on my way to work.. It was all gone a few months later.
When the place was half torn down, I was at Station 19 for progressive quarter beer night, and the restroom lines were out of control so I walked over to the fence around the stadium, slipped past it and walked into the ruins and found an old restroom and relieved myself in the old closed end near the archway. I grabbed two bricks and headed home.
By the end of 1983 I avoided going to any Gopher Football games , as it was bad football (the Metrodome was so bad I could not even care when Lou H had it going for 2 years) and I hated the Metrodome so much, only to return in 1998, when we finally had a real coach again.
P.S. I also recall the buckets or baskets being handed around to collect cash to fight the NCAA crushing sanctions of Dutcher's great soon to be 27-3 basketball team, probably at the 1976 Iowa game.
