What is now Gordon Wood Stadium opened in 1972 and I can remember almost everything about it. Brownwood kicked off to open the ballgame. They were playing a good Abilene Cooper team. Mike Goodgion kicked off for us and the history of Gordon Wood Stadium began.
But, it was what happened before that kickoff that was most memorable to me. Gordon Wood Stadium, as far as tax money was concerned, was built for $250,000. The stadium got $50,000 from Howard Payne, $50,000 from Brown County, $50,000 from the school district, $50,000 from the City of Brownwood, and $50,000 from somewhere else. There were a lot of donations as well. Many companies around Brownwood simply donated their time and labor to help build that stadium.
Now, when the stadium opened, there were no dressing rooms. The Lions dressed at the high school and the visiting team dressed at the junior high. There was no scoreboard. All they had were two portable basketball scoreboards beyond each end zone. But everything else was there. They had lights. They had the press box. They had all of the seating. It didn’t look nearly as nice on the perimeter as it does now, but it was playable.
But the real story was what happened on the night before the stadium opened. The public was having a cleanup night. On the east side of the field, they had a big road grader, or whatever you call it, one of those big road machines that has the giant roller in the front. They were rolling out some rough spots on the field. At the time, I was sitting in the stands with Coach Wood and Coach Southall, and a couple of other people.
All of the sudden, as we watched, at about the 20-yard-line, this huge machine started going down … and down … and down. We just sat there in shock, and nobody said anything for about a minute or two. Finally, one of the guys said, “What the heck just happened?”
We went across the field and the driver of the road grader was walking back up to field level. He was in shock as well. It turned out that there was an underground spring below the surface, and it had caved in from the 20-yard-line to the goal line.
What it took to be able to play football the next day was unbelievable. A trucking company came and brought sand all night long. These sand trucks would come in and unload, then people would pack it down before another truck showed up. A lot of fans stayed up all night long watching and helping. They were still packing sand as game time approached.
When we played the ballgame that Friday night the field looked beautiful until you got down on that end of the field, and it was pure sand. One thing I learned that night was that you can pack sand all you want, but it’s still sand. Fact is, for that season and a few to follow, any time anybody got tackled in that area, sand flew.
But that now 50-year-old stadium has held up pretty doggone good, considering the shaky start it had.
Until next time, so long everybody.
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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].