Memorial Stadium is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

and

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

Wichita Falls, Texas Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the seat of government of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay, and Wichita counties. Accordin ...

located on Southwest Parkway at Barnett Road. It is owned and operated by the

Wichita Falls Independent School District Wichita Falls Independent School District (WFISD) is a public school district based in Wichita Falls, Texas, Wichita Falls, Texas, United States and is accredited by the Texas Education Agency. Wichita Falls ISD serves most of Wichita Falls (incl ...

History

Built in 1970, the stadium can seat 14,500 fans with room for 2,500 more and is one of the largest high school football stadiums in the state of Texas. Some of the stadium's attractions include parking for up to 3,600 cars, a two-story press box for visiting coaches, dignitaries, and the media, as well as an

artificial turf Artificial turf is a surface of synthetic fibers made to look like natural grass. It is most often used in arenas for sports that were originally or are normally played on grass. However, it is now being used on residential lawns and commer ...

playing surface and a state of the art scoreboard, most of which were added several years after the stadium's initial opening. Every summer, Memorial Stadium is host to the

Oil Bowl The Oil Bowl was a college football bowl game played three times at Rice Field in Houston, Texas in the 1940s. Muddy conditions for the first game, and freezing temperatures for the third game, doomed future contests. In 1949, a junior college bow ...

Classic, an annual high school all-star football game that pits the best football players from Texas against those from

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

. On April 10, 1979, Memorial Stadium was severely damaged when an F4

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

tore through the southwest portion of Wichita Falls, the winds only measuring up to an F3 on the

Fujita scale The Fujita scale (F-Scale; ), or Fujita–Pearson scale (FPP scale), is a scale for rating tornado intensity, based primarily on the damage tornadoes inflict on human-built structures and vegetation. The official Fujita scale category is determ ...

while the tornado was directly on top of the stadium, however. The tornado in question also brought upon extremely severe damage to the town of Wichita Falls, causing major safety reforms to buildings and a massive rebuild of the town and the infrastructure within it. That Tuesday in April 1979 hosted the creation of several smaller but equally devastating tornados around the

Red River Valley The Red River Valley is a region in central North America that is drained by the Red River of the North; it is part of both Canada and the United States. Forming the border between Minnesota and North Dakota when these territories were admitted ...

area in what is known as the 1979 Red River Valley tornado outbreak, often casually referred to as "Terrible Tuesday".

Usage

Memorial Stadium is home to the John Hirschi High School Huskies, S.H. Rider High School Raiders, and Wichita Falls High School Coyotes. It has also served as the home of the

Midwestern State University Midwestern State University (MSU Texas) is a public liberal arts university in Wichita Falls, Texas. In 2020 it had 5,141 undergraduate students. It is the state's only public institution focused on the liberal arts. History Founded in 1922 as ...

football program since 1988. From 1971 through 1978, and also in 1981 and 1982, the stadium hosted various

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

playoff games, at the Division II and

Division I-A The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

levels, known as the

Pioneer Bowl The Pioneer Bowl was the name of some December college football bowl games played in two different eras. Between 1971 and 1982, the game was contested 10 times in Texas as an NCAA College Division regional final, or as a playoff game for Divisio ...

References

{{Texas college football venues High school football venues in Texas Midwestern State Mustangs football Sports venues in Texas Buildings and structures in Wichita Falls, Texas 1970 establishments in Texas Sports venues completed in 1970 College football venues