Ralph Korte Stadium, also known as "The Ralph", is a 4,000 seat stadium located on the campus of

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is a public university in Edwardsville, Illinois. SIUE was established in 1957 as an extension of Southern Illinois University Carbondale.Butler 1976, p. 18 It is the younger of the two major inst ...

in Edwardsville,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

. It is home to the SIUE

Cougars The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. ...

men's and women's soccer and outdoor

track & field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

teams. In addition to the stands on the west side of the field, a berm was put in on the east side in 2011 to provide lawn seating for the tailgating fans known as "The East Siders."

Construction

The stadium was constructed on university property surrounding the existing "Bob Guelker Field" in 1993–94 by the City of Edwardsville as a site to host the 1994 U.S. Olympic Festival. In 1998, the university trustees named the stadium to honor Ralph Korte, the founder of The Korte Company of

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

, an SIUE alumnus and strong advocate of the school. The soccer playing surface was named, on November 1, 1986, in honor of

Bob Guelker Bob Guelker (June 26, 1923 – February 22, 1986) was an American soccer coach and administrator. He coached 24 years at the collegiate level, including coaching St. Louis University to five championships (1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1965). He c ...

, the coach who inaugurated SIUE's men's soccer program and led it to the

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 ...

Division II championship in 1972 and the Division I crown in 1979.

Usage

The Korte Stadium and its earlier incarnation, Cougar Field, has hosted the

NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship The NCAA Division I men's soccer tournament, sometimes known as the College Cup, is an American intercollegiate soccer tournament conducted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and determines the Division I men's national champi ...

in 1970 and 1975, the 1972 Division II Men's Soccer Championship, and the Division II

NCAA Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championship The NCAA Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championship refers to one of three annual collegiate outdoor track and field competitions for men organised by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for athletes from institutions that make up ...

in 1997, 1998, 2001, and 2003. It was also the home stadium for the

Saint Louis Athletica Saint Louis Athletica was an American professional soccer club that was based in the St. Louis suburb of Fenton, Missouri that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. Athletica started the 2009 season playing its home games at Ralph Korte S ...

Women's Professional Soccer Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 sea ...

for part of their 2009 season, during which the capacity was expanded to 5,000 seats; the team later started playing at Anheuser-Busch Soccer Park.

Features

The track features eight 48-inch lanes, with European-style broad turns (118 meters) and short straightaways (82 meters). The field event facilities include high jump aprons; pole vault runways; long jump/triple jump pits; shot put, discus, and hammer throw rings; and javelin throw runways on the west side, just outside the stadium grandstand. The

Gateway Arch The Gateway Arch is a monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Some sources consider ...

on the

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

riverfront, 25 miles to the southwest, can be seen from the top of the stands at The Ralph.

Record attendance

The record single-day attendance for a track & field competition is 11,072 on July 10, 1994 at the U.S. Olympic Festival. Although an estimated crowd of over 8,000 was present for the 1971 Bronze Boot game versus

at Cougar Field, the largest soccer crowd in the stadium's current configuration was 4,665 for the Homecoming game against

Bradley Bradley is an English surname derived from a place name meaning "broad wood" or "broad meadow" in Old English. Like many English surnames Bradley can also be used as a given name and as such has become popular. It is also an Anglicisation of t ...

on October 4, 2014.

References

External links

Official SIUE website

Venue information (Map and photos)

{{Southern Illinois University Edwardsville campus Edwardsville, Illinois Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Saint Louis Athletica Athletics (track and field) venues in Illinois College soccer venues in the United States College track and field venues in the United States Soccer venues in Illinois Sports venues completed in 1994 1994 establishments in Illinois