Anyone else here old enough to remember

[ProudUte]

When the spring game was played against the alumni?

It would be fun to have Eric Weddle playing safety against our starters.

Back in those days, Utah did not have many players in the NFL.  So most of the alumni were available to play in the game.

Also back in those days, the first NFL preseason game was the previous year’s NFL champion against a group of graduated college all-stars.  No way they would do that today in fear of the all-stars getting hurt.

[Tony (admin)]

You have me beat.

[Dallas]

What years did this happen. Sounds super fun.

[ProudUte]

I think the alumni spring game was still being played in the 70s if I remember correctly.

[Charlie]

I don’t remember the year(s) but I do remember the spring game being between football alumni and the team.  I also remember a BBQ after the game with the winners having steak and the losers having hot dogs.  It seems that all ended when an alumni player broke a leg.  It was sometime before they moved to the practice field in the current location east of the cemetery.  By the early 90s, I remember the spring game being reduced to maybe a hundred fans standing at the top of a small hill on the east side of the practice field along a chain link fense.  Later, the game’s fans grew again and was moved back into the stadium.

[2008 National Champ]

88/89 under Fassel it was still at Rice and we did the steak/hot dog dinner. Could the practice field spring game(s) have coincided with stadium construction?

[Charlie]

I think it could have. Actually, it was late 90s when it was a small thing because I remember sitting on the grass at the practice field for some time after the game with my sons and Darnell Arceneaux, the new QB. Early 90s I remember taking pics with Luther Ellis and my daughter and that was in what was Rice stadium. Bob Rice donated money when I was in the army early 70s to remove the track and build out the south end zone. Fun fact, when I was a student in the late 70s, we would go to games with full size camp coolers and have a row of coolers on the bench in front of us. The student section was middle of the field on the east side.

[2008 National Champ]

practices were always split so that a couple days a week we were down at the stadium, otherwise it was on the field to the east (?) of the sports building / locker rooms. there wasn’t any fencing then and so there were always at least 50 people in lawn chairs with coolers watching with the exception of the inevitable snow practice that you got every April. as much fun as it was to practice on the turf, at least when we were on the grass field, you knew you’d never have to end the day with stairs.

spring ball was much different in those days. you practiced for a month and the game was the reward. now i hear about schools who have turned the game into situational scrimmages. after a month of O v D, it was nice to have the team bonding and let everything fly for a day.

[Charlie]

I meant to say we took coolers to regular season games in the 70s in the student section. Everyone could take coolers but the students had room to set them on benches.

I remember sitting against the hill at practices on the practice field. But the hill just outside the sports building left little room on the east sideline. I do remember 1 spring game where they did not like us down on the field in that small space and the only place to watch was from the top of the hill that had a 4 foot chain-link fence. I was bummed about standing up the hole time and kids that had to look thru the fence. I think it was the year they were working on the stadium going from Rice to RES. I think that is the only year outside the stadium.

Over the years there have been different formats for the spring game. Now they do have teams but work on situational things and players change sides. The best games were much more like actual games with turnovers that were big deals. I also remember some very spirited moments with pushing and shoving where the outcome seemed to be as important as any regular season game. I loved the alumni games because old players came back. I believe the alumni practiced for 2 or 3 days prior. There was a lot of pride involved with all that. It was a good sign when the team competed well with the alumni all stars. I am trying to remember if the pro teams at one time let their players participate. But I do think injuries to uninsured players put an end to it all.

[2008 National Champ]

i think the college all-star games ended once they beat the defending champion. not a lot of appetite from the pro’s after that point, especially since it wasn’t a money maker for them. remember that until television money changed the dynamics, most pro’s had to have off-season jobs.

not sure which year’s would have been affected but all the construction related to the olympics had to encroach on normal activities at some point.

[astUTE]

“…full size camp coolers…”

As a junior high school kid in the early seventies, I remember going to games (mostly to hang out with several girls from my school who were at the game with their parents).

It was not at all uncommon in those days to see people walking into the stadium wiih coolers. I married one of those girls many years later and found out that her parents always took a full sized cooler, so they could setup a full service bar serving c**ktails to the group of friends and family that always attended together.

None of that group would really be considered “drinkers”, but it was a tradition to have a c**ktail at the game.

[Charlie]

They allowed drinking in the stadium but they would bounce drunks. I actually think there were fewer people with drinking issues then than now. So strange, but being drunk was not cool but drinking was. Way back when I remember men with cigars here and there in the stadium. For cold games we always boiled cranberry juice, added hooch and put it into 1 gallon thermoses – in the student section. I did that for years until I had kids that could not participate, so I sat in the cold with them instead.

[astUTE]

I had completely forgotten about the cigars… My grandfather (father’s father) smoked cigars, and would always smoke one sometime during a game.  He would walk off a bit from the crowd at my grandmother’s insistence.

That is one thing that is dramatically different now – I literally NEVER smell tobacco smoke anywhere today.  But you could not go virtually anywhere in public in those days without smelling it.

One last old football memory, recounted to me by my mother-in-law: she grew up in the 40’s and early 50’s, and remembers that all of the adults in her extended family (except her mother) would go to the “rivalry” game every Thanksgiving Day against the Aggies.  She would be at home helping her mother get the Thanksgiving Dinner ready for everyone, but they had to wait for the game to end and for all the adults to return to eat.

[homer]

The first games I attended were when the track was in the stadium, before Bob Rice donated $1,000,000 for the renovation.

We used to get to the stadium a couple hours early to get the best student seats right on the 50 yard line.
Speaking of cigars, does anyone else remember the cymbols man?