Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Memorial Stadium Drive Book #1 [PAGE 7]

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THE DUTY, THE RESPONSIBILITY, IS YOURS

OU are an Illini. You are proud of your Alma Mater, loyal to her colors. You are glad to be one of her students, willing to serve her interests, to sacrifice for her progress. . You know that a splendid Memorial Recreation Field and. Stadium for our campus is projected, and that the campaign to raise the necessary funds has begun. You realize that the successful achievement of our plans will require careful organization, hard and persistent work, and the united support of all Illini. You must feel that the fortunate outcome of this campaign will be the awakening of a fine, more devoted Illini spirit throughout our Illini world—our students, our faculty, our alumni, our entire state citizenry; the establishment of a state-wide esprit de corps in University activities; the development, throughout our community, of a genuine sense of responsibility for, and obligation to, our University. With genuine Illini spirit you are ready to take your part in this campaign; to do your share of the work; to give full measure of service; and to sacrifice of your time, your strength, your substance;—that the success of this movement may be assured from the very first. We summon you to the task. We would engage your enthusiasm, your energy, your effort, in cordial support of this movement. From this day until the dedication of the Memorial Field and Stadium, we are sure you will devote yourselves loyally and wholeheartedly to the work of the campaign, serving wherever you can best serve. For it is from you, you the individual student, that the initiative in this great movement must come. Yours is the vision, yours the inspiration, yours the plan, yours the achievement. Yours is the optifnism, the faith, the enthusiasm, that will succeed. Youth will be served. The duty, the responsibility, is yours. W. ELMER EKBLAW. BE A STADIUM BUILDER Once up6n a time there was an Old Grad who lived the meek and selfish life of a plodder. Oiie day another Old Grad, full of Spirit, discovered who he was and slapping him on the back he said:- r"Well, Old Brave, I suppose you are going back to the Old Hunting Ground for Homecoming." "No," answered the first Old Grad, sadly. '"I finished twenty years ago, and I have never been back since. You see, I didn't do anything worth while when I was in school, and nobody would know me now. And then I never did anything for the University, so there's nothing I can point to with pride when I go back. I'm ashamed to return now." Once way back in 1940 the eldest son of the Old Grad picked up the morning paper. "Father," he said, "Tickets for the Illinois-Ohio game are all sold out. Must you miss this game for the first time in twenty years?" "No, my son," came the proud answer. "For the little fighting your daddy did in the World War that seat he ha<J dedicated to him down on Illinois Memorial Stadium guarantees him admission to every game." • *

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G. HUFF, THE BUILDER

An Appreciation by DAVID KINLEY

T this time when the campaign for a Memorial Recreation Field and Stadium engrosses the attention of our campus community, and our enthusiasm burns bright and our loyalty blazes high above all sordid and selfish interests, it is well to recall that to G. Huff we owe the primary inspiration for this great movement. Without his calm, sure guidance these many years we should not now be ready to engage in this worthy enterprise. Modestly always, but always with keen broad vision and definite purpose, G. Huff has built for the honor and glory of Illinois. Effacing self and looking neither to the right for praise, nor to the left for blame, he has planned and worked and built that the men of Illinois might be better, cleaner, truer men, and that the whole state might benefit by a better citizenship. He has wrought so unobtrusively that most of us have not yet realized how much he has accomplished, how much the University owes him, or how deeply indebted the entire state is to his work. Year after year he has held before the men of Illinois the deal of fair play, of clean competition, of earnest endeavor, until throughout the length and breadth of the land, his name is a synonym for integrity and purity of purpose and character. He has built for the Illini a splendid structure of personal and University idealism that can not be destroyed. It is safe to say that no other man has had more influence in developing the integrity of our student and alumnus body. I do not purpose to recount the many movements in collegiate physical training and athletic training and athletic competition that he has initiated; but the authoritative position that our Western Intercollegiate Conference holds in the a:hletic world; the development of intra-mural and mass athletics; the coaching school—these and many others are in large measure his plan, his structure. And in baseball,—who can name his peer? But it is not only in athletics and in physical training that he has been pioneer, leader, builder. In other important fields he has wrought equally well. He has ever been a powerful factor in legislative benefits to Blinois; he has built constructively in the alumni association; he has counseled wisely and built well in community affairs—always unostentatiously. G. Huff is a builder. He is a builder of men—their health, their strength, their character. He is a builder of ideals—in thought, and word, and deed. He is a builder of hopes, and plans, and achievements. G. Huff is a Stadium-builder in the finest sense of the word! WHAT WALTER ECKERSALL THINKS Walter Eckersall, sports assistant on the Chicago Tribune said: "I am highly in favor of a stadium at the University of Illinois. Attendance at the Minnesota game, at which I was present, showed the need of something of that kind at our state University. "In addition to assuring student and alumni of seats, attendance will be increased a large percentage because of the attraction which will be offered by the stadium itself. "Also such a structure will have for Illinois a desirable effect on high school athletics, who are impressed by the sensational, the attractive. "The memorial idea is splendid."

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