A blog which supplements my two books, Menasha, and Neenah and Menasha: Twin Cities of the Fox Valley
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Downtown 1958
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Calder Stadium Dedication
The blog post of August 27th touched upon this event, but in honor of it actually occurring 48 years ago today, here's the whole story as reported by the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern of September 14, 1964.
I'll bet a lot of your readers played in ball games in Calder Stadium or marched in a band during those games. It would be interesting to read about their observations and experiences. Does anyone else agree?
Well, I can't say I played in any "ball games" at Calder Stadium when I was on the Track team in 1970, 1971, and 1972. In those days, only Grades 10-12 were at the Senior High School, while Grades 7, 8, and 9 were at Butte des Morts or Maplewood. As a freshman, you could not be on the Varsity Track Team. In 1971 (I think), the Coach (can't remember if it was Russell Leitz or Dean Sauers) told us that "they" wanted us to use the track at Calder for some of our practices rather than our regular track right behind the High School building. So, we'd occasionally walk over the Calder Stadium and practice on the track. The track was pretty crummy. I was told that when they got the track installed, they used the wrong kind or size of cinders. I don't know if that story was correct, but everyone agreed that the track was lousy.
There was some talk about having one of our home track meets at Calder, but nothing ever came of it.
BTW, if you ever attended a daytime athletic event at Calder, you probably remember how difficult it was to read the scoreboard, particularly the time clock. When the scoreboard was ordered, some genius decided to order a "nighttime" scoreboard, which didn't show up very well at all during daylight. This was a silly mistake, because during my 3 years at the High School, very few games were played at night. I realize that most of them are now played at night, but they weren't back then.
Rumor had it that there were locker rooms at Calder Stadium, but neither I nor anyone I knew (including several guys on the football team) ever saw them.
One of the favorite pastimes of kids going to games at Calder was to go up to the top of the home (south) side seating area and spit on the cars that were parked next to the seating area.
Frankly, when I was in High School, the general impression was that Calder Stadium was a white elephant that nobody really wanted to use, except for an occasional football game. The place was too remote from the High School building to generate any real student enthusiasm.
While I never played a sporting event on the field, I played five half-time presentations, 8th grade through senior year, for St. Mary's homecoming games, with Russell Gilligan as our director. Later I "worked" on the field, doing some maintenance on the lawn sprinkler system when I was employed with an irrigation contractor as we were called upon by Menasha Park and Rec to solve a problem with the system.
The remarks by Nathan Calder about "pushing and shoving" remind me a lot of Mr. Gilligan's coaching style with his musicians. We were "pushed and shoved", so to speak, to be our best. The results of that were worth the effort, as we won many awards, both as band performers and soloists, as well as gaining a philosophy of living our lives to a high quality of performance.
I am the Interested Observer who made the comments back in January 2018. My father, who graduated from Menasha in 1939, took me to the Calder Field Dedication Game that was played on September 12, 1964. To be honest, I don't remember much of anything about the game except that it was a bright, sunny day and Menasha soundly defeated the Berlin Indians. (That name wasn't considered politically incorrect in those days.) Later, when I was in Junior and Senior High School, I went to many games at Calder Stadium. It seemed that a lot of them were played in wet, cold conditions. Nathan Calder was no longer teaching when I got to high school, but he was the football coach when my father and his brother were in high school. My father knew Calder, but his brother played football for Calder and knew him well. The brother thought Calder was a good coach but he played favorites. If I recall, Calder eventually retired to Florida.
I'll bet a lot of your readers played in ball games in Calder Stadium or marched in a band during those games. It would be interesting to read about their observations and experiences. Does anyone else agree?
ReplyDeleteWell, I can't say I played in any "ball games" at Calder Stadium when I was on the Track team in 1970, 1971, and 1972. In those days, only Grades 10-12 were at the Senior High School, while Grades 7, 8, and 9 were at Butte des Morts or Maplewood. As a freshman, you could not be on the Varsity Track Team. In 1971 (I think), the Coach (can't remember if it was Russell Leitz or Dean Sauers) told us that "they" wanted us to use the track at Calder for some of our practices rather than our regular track right behind the High School building. So, we'd occasionally walk over the Calder Stadium and practice on the track. The track was pretty crummy. I was told that when they got the track installed, they used the wrong kind or size of cinders. I don't know if that story was correct, but everyone agreed that the track was lousy.
ReplyDeleteThere was some talk about having one of our home track meets at Calder, but nothing ever came of it.
BTW, if you ever attended a daytime athletic event at Calder, you probably remember how difficult it was to read the scoreboard, particularly the time clock. When the scoreboard was ordered, some genius decided to order a "nighttime" scoreboard, which didn't show up very well at all during daylight. This was a silly mistake, because during my 3 years at the High School, very few games were played at night. I realize that most of them are now played at night, but they weren't back then.
Rumor had it that there were locker rooms at Calder Stadium, but neither I nor anyone I knew (including several guys on the football team) ever saw them.
One of the favorite pastimes of kids going to games at Calder was to go up to the top of the home (south) side seating area and spit on the cars that were parked next to the seating area.
Frankly, when I was in High School, the general impression was that Calder Stadium was a white elephant that nobody really wanted to use, except for an occasional football game. The place was too remote from the High School building to generate any real student enthusiasm.
While I never played a sporting event on the field, I played five half-time presentations, 8th grade through senior year, for St. Mary's homecoming games, with Russell Gilligan as our director. Later I "worked" on the field, doing some maintenance on the lawn sprinkler system when I was employed with an irrigation contractor as we were called upon by Menasha Park and Rec to solve a problem with the system.
ReplyDeleteThe remarks by Nathan Calder about "pushing and shoving" remind me a lot of Mr. Gilligan's coaching style with his musicians. We were "pushed and shoved", so to speak, to be our best. The results of that were worth the effort, as we won many awards, both as band performers and soloists, as well as gaining a philosophy of living our lives to a high quality of performance.
I am the Interested Observer who made the comments back in January 2018. My father, who graduated from Menasha in 1939, took me to the Calder Field Dedication Game that was played on September 12, 1964. To be honest, I don't remember much of anything about the game except that it was a bright, sunny day and Menasha soundly defeated the Berlin Indians. (That name wasn't considered politically incorrect in those days.) Later, when I was in Junior and Senior High School, I went to many games at Calder Stadium. It seemed that a lot of them were played in wet, cold conditions. Nathan Calder was no longer teaching when I got to high school, but he was the football coach when my father and his brother were in high school. My father knew Calder, but his brother played football for Calder and knew him well. The brother thought Calder was a good coach but he played favorites. If I recall, Calder eventually retired to Florida.
ReplyDelete