Memorial Stadium was a 10,022-seat stadium on the campus of The

University of Texas at Arlington The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA or UT Arlington) is a public research university in Arlington, Texas. The university was founded in 1895 and was in the Texas A&M University System for several decades until joining the University of Te ...

that served as the home site for the numerous teams that would become

UT Arlington Mavericks The UT Arlington Mavericks (abbreviated UT Arlington, UTA, and Mavs) are the athletic teams that represent the University of Texas at Arlington in Arlington, Texas. The Mavericks currently compete in the NCAA Division I Western Athletic Confere ...

as well as the

Arlington Independent School District Arlington Independent School District or AISD is a school district based in Arlington, Texas (USA). The Arlington Independent School District covers the majority of Arlington and much of the Tarrant County portion of Grand Prairie. The distr ...

Features

The steel and wood stadium opened for the 1951 football season and cost $60,000 to construct. Original capacity was 5,500. The stadium was oriented north-south from end zone to end zone with a playing field, west-side stands and a press box. In 1962, Memorial Stadium was expanded, reaching its final capacity of 10,022 with the addition of east-side stands. The stadium was located immediately west of the present

Maverick Activities Center Maverick, Maveric or Maverik may refer to: History * Maverick (animal), an unbranded range animal, derived from U.S. cattleman Samuel Maverick Aviation * AEA Maverick, an Australian single-seat sportsplane design * General Aviation Design Burea ...

on what is now a field of flat recreational space and east of the nearby creek.

History

The Arlington State College Rebels won the national junior college championship in 1956 and 1957. The school would rise to four-year status in 1959. UTA would play as an NCAA College Division Independent for a half decade before founding the

Southland Conference The Southland Conference, abbreviated as SLC, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the South Central United States (specifically Texas and Louisiana). It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it pa ...

and playing its first conference game as a University in 1964. The stadium would host the 1966 SLC co-champions and the 1967 outright champions, the first SLC team to post a perfect conference record. The 1967 team would finish the regular season ranked third in the

UPI United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...

poll and beat

North Dakota State North Dakota State University (NDSU, formally North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences) is a public land-grant research university in Fargo, North Dakota. It was founded as North Dakota Agricultural College in 1890 as t ...

, who was ranked second in that poll, 13–0 in the 1967 Pecan Bowl. One of the more memorable games came in the 1968 season. In what was the equivalent of the Southland Conference championship game, UTA hosted the

Arkansas State Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage l ...

Indians with a 15-game home winning streak and Southland Conference championship on the line. UTA was sporting a 2–0 SLC mark while Arkansas State was 3–0 in the five-team league. A win for Arkansas State would give them the title outright, while a UTA victory would guarantee a share. UTA led 21–14 when Arkansas State scored a touchdown and added a two-point conversion to go up 22–21 with three minutes remaining. UTA would fumble a punt with under two minutes to seal the game. UTA teams played at Memorial Stadium until the conclusion of the 1969 season while Arlington high school teams played games there until the completion of the 1973 high school football season. Memorial Stadium provided a home field advantage the program would never see again. From 1959 to 1969, the Rebels were 35-17-1, a winning percentage of .670. Included was a winning streak of 15 games that spanned from the last home game of 1965 to the last home game of 1968, the aforementioned Arkansas State game. Ironically, the longest losing streak came immediately after the winning streak as UTA would lose five in a row until winning the final game of the 1969 season, also the final game at Memorial. As UTA prepared to move up the highest level of college football, officials at the University deemed Memorial too small and old to host higher level schools, which was needed to move up. The City of Arlington had just purchased

Turnpike Stadium Arlington Stadium was a baseball stadium located in Arlington, Texas, United States, located between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. It served as the home for the Texas Rangers (MLB) from 1972 until 1993, after which the team moved into The Bal ...

from

Tarrant County Tarrant County is located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of 2020, it had a population of 2,110,640. It is Texas' third-most populous county and the 15th-most populous in the United States. Its county seat is Fort Worth. Tarrant County, one of 2 ...

, a minor league baseball stadium with the ability to host football games. The stadium was a lure for a major league team (eventually becoming the home of the Texas Rangers in 1972), but the City did not have a full-time tenant during the fall. Seeing a cost-effective solution, UTA would play their home games there beginning in 1970 leaving the UTA campus for the city-owned venue three miles away. UTA wouldn't play another home game on campus until the opening of

Maverick Stadium Maverick Stadium is a 12,500-seat multi-purpose stadium on the western edge of University of Texas at Arlington campus. It hosts the university's track and field teams and is also leased by the Arlington Independent School District and Pantego ...

in 1980, after Arlington Stadium was locked into a permanent baseball configuration. After the last high school game of the 1973 season, Memorial Stadium was demolished. In 1975, the

opened east of the site, and provided UTA students recreational opportunities not previously available on campus.

References

{{University of Texas at Arlington Defunct college football venues Texas–Arlington Mavericks football UT Arlington Mavericks sports venues Sports venues in Arlington, Texas 20th century in Arlington, Texas American football venues in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex 1951 establishments in Texas Sports venues completed in 1951 1973 disestablishments in Texas Sports venues demolished in 1973 Demolished sports venues in Texas High school football venues in Texas