Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Memorial Stadium Drive Book #1 [PAGE 2]

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The GREAT NECESSITY

A MEMORIAL "There is no death; they all survive." OR the 351,153 men she offered; for the 4,266 killed, the 13,794 wounded, the state of Illinois has no enduring memorial. She has no monument to stand as a lasting tribute to the spirit and patriotism of the people of Illinois. It is fitting that a memorial to the dead should also be a blessing to the living— to those who offered their lives in the same cause, but were spared. The University of Illinois is the monument that the people of the state have erected to Education. According to the opinion of the delegates expressed at a meeting called for them at the March 5, the former service men of Illinois generally aprove of the plan to make the Recreation, Field and Stadium a state memorial; not more necessarily the state memorial but one of many perhaps, in the years to come. ILLINOIS ESPRIT DE CORPS. "A union of Illinois hearts and hopes and hands forever"

Twenty thousand were admitted to the Ohio game. No one was allowed more than two tickets. Tickets were sold out ten days before and notices were printed in papers all over the country warning people that no seats were left. In spite of these precautions two stenographers were kept busy for three days returning applications. According to G. Huff, forty or fifty thousand tickets could have been sold. A guarantee of $15,000 is the limit that can stand behind a game on Illinois Field. Schools are already demanding $45,000 guarantees. This means that Illinois will be left off the schedule of teams which can get higher guarantees elsewhere, if nothing is done to relieve the situation. Other schools are building stadia or carrying on drives for them. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Chicago have stadia. Ohio has broken ground for their million dollar horseshoe. The following schools have begun or ended their campaigns: Iowa State, University of Cincinnati, Kansas University, University of Oregon, Columbia, and Denison University. Illinois is larger and has more prestige than any of these universities, yet we have a field with wooden bleachers. A RECREATION FIELD. "That our youth may have strength in spirit, mind, and body to fulfill their broader service to humanity." Standing as a relic of 1901, when the enrollment was 1,709, the old gym seeks to provide recreational facilities for the young men of the 1920 enrollment—8,539. It was years ago outworn by the modern method of intra-mural and mass athletics. "Everybody in the game" is the motto of the hour. Eighty-four basketball teams are playing in the intra-mural league this year. Games are scheduled at 4, 5, 5, 7, and 8 o'clock daily, and many prospective entrants are kept out of the league because of lack of facilities. Postponments and cancellations, those great stumbling blocks to successful mass athletics, are common. Forty-one baseball teams were organized last spring. Makeshift diamonds were made on all available space about the University. Tennis courts at present total thirty-five. Six are for the use of women only. courts in all for 8,539 students and 904 members of the faculty!

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Hal Pogue '16 says: "The reason the alumni are not better organized is because they have never been called upon to put across anything big. The stadium will be the occasion for accomplishing this." A cementing of the bonds between students, alumni, and people of the state of Illinois is a goal for stadium workers. The drive organizers have planned the re-organization of Illini clubs, and the stirring up of quiescent pride and loyalty. A firmly knit alumni association is the foundation of any organization. Our alumni are 42,000 strong, but a large percentage of them are lost to the University. Hundreds have never once returned after graduation. A bond which will produce an Illini spirit—that is the aim of stadium workers. Hundreds of people in the state of Illinois are unaware of the existence of the University of Illinois. One legislator from Chicago in a recent visit to the University said as he was coming over on the street car: "I hear that you have two buildings at the University? Is that true?" Animosity to the University is usually the result of lack of acquaintance with it. The University News Bureau was organized to assist in the solution of acquainting the people of the state with the University. Harmony, union, a common goal means "In union there is strength." A STADIUM. A wave of football enthusiasm swept the country in the fall of 1920. Game attendance records were broken-—20,000, 30,000, 50,000 at a single game! In 1914 when the enrollment at the University was 5,000, the seating capacity of Illinois Fields bleachers was 13,000. In 1920, when the attendance was 8,000 and our alumni numbered 42,000 the capacity of the field was 17,000, with standing room for 3,000.

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There are no possibilities for ice skating, hockey, handball, or la crosse. The May fete is given on Illinois Field. Mass meetings, parades, concerts, and pageants are features which must accept the best facilities offered. "Give us more room," is the cry. "Give us the means to exercise our bodies that our minds may be fitted to perform their service to humanity!" The memorial proposed will be more than a stadium. It will be the hub of a vest recreational field of one hundred acres where University and recreational activities prosper within the shadows of its inspirational towers. "A tribute to the dead, an inspiration to the living."

This is the chance to do something fine for Illinois—to serve and to give. This is the chance, the test of loyalty that glows and grows in memory.

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