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In honor of this, the last season that the University of Akron will play football at the Rubber Bowl, we asked readers to send us their memories of the stadium. Some 150 of you responded. The following are edited excerpts from a few of our favorites.
Published on Thursday, Oct 09, 2008
AS A PLAYER ON THE 1958 ZIPS football team, the final football game of the season was played before a sparse crowd at the Rubber Bowl on a field void of any vegetation.
After several days of rain, the Acme-Zip band show, a couple of dozen high school and collegiate football games and a rodeo, the field was a muddy quagmire inside the hash marks and a shallow pond from the hashes out to the sidelines.
An official had to ''hold'' the ball on the field between downs lest it would float away!
Running backs who were tackled outside the middle of the sloppy field were in danger of drowning.
Final score of the ''Mud Bowl'': Baldwin-Wallace 0; UA 0.
Marty Tausch
Kent
IT WAS 1979 and I played the trumpet in the Firestone High School Marching Band at the Rubber Bowl.
Halfway through the performance . . . as we were marching towards the middle of the field, I suddenly realized that there was some cooler air making its way up my backside.
My band uniform pants had fallen completely down to my ankles. I had to keep marching as to not upset the rest of the formation.
Howard Kent
Copley Township
MY FAMILY GREW UP ON BROWN STREET, just across from St. Paul's Catholic Church. It was during the Depression, when we had very little.
My father had a garden on the lot behind our home and when all of our chores were done, my two older sisters and I, along with some kids from the neighborhood, hiked to where the Rubber Bowl would eventually be built.
At this time there was nothing but high sandy hills that were cut out in the shape of a bowl.
We climbed up to the top of these hills and slid down as though it was a giant sliding board.
Of course, we wore out our secondhand clothes in some places, but it was worth it.
Donald J. Belair
Stow
WHEN THE RUBBER BOWL WAS DEDICATED, there was a wonderful program!
The grade schools girls did an Indian Club drill. We wore blue shorts and white T-shirts. Our Indian Clubs had flashlights and the stadium lights were turned off. The lights flickered. There were several hundred girls in the drill.
I was tripped by a girl running out of the stadium and was one of the first patients at the infirmary.
Virginia Calich
Uniontown
I WAS 7 YEARS OLD IN 1946. My dad, Ed Jones, raced midget race cars in the Rubber Bowl. My mom would take me to the races. I couldn't wait to watch my dad race.
When the big moment arrived, my mom, who was afraid to watch my dad race, would take me to the restroom.
I never did get to see my dad race his midget race car, but the Rubber Bowl sure had nice restrooms!
Jim Jones
Barberton
I'VE HEARD PEOPLE ASK WHY the stadium lights at the Rubber Bowl were not located behind the seats. The reason is the Federal Aviation Administration did not approve several requests to move the lights behind the seats. They denied them because the lights would have projected into the outer edge of the landing zone for Fulton Airport.
Some months after one of the FAA's denials, the University of Akron hired Gerry Faust to be its coach. The can-do Faust wanted the lights moved yesterday.
I was a deputy mayor for Akron then and one of my duties was to be the city's liaison with the university. Ray Kapper was the city's service director then and Fulton Airport was part of his department.
We told Gerry about the FAA's consistent denial of the requests to move the lights. He said, ''Let me talk to them.'' So Gerry, Ray and I made a trip to Detroit to meet with the regional director of the FAA.
As we entered his office, the director's eyes lit up when he saw Gerry with us. It turned out that he and some of his staff members were Notre Dame fans.
Like all Notre Dame fans, they loved Gerry. They were so excited to see him that I thought for a few moments that Gerry was going to charm them into approving the request for the lights. But 15 minutes later, when the football talk ended, those bureaucrats returned to their usual rigid selves and the lights are still down on the field to this day.
Mike Hudkins
Cuyahoga Falls
I ATTENDED AKRON GARFIELD HIGH SCHOOL from 1967 to 1970 and was in the marching band all three years. The Rubber Bowl was our home field, so we performed there almost every Friday night during football season.
They used to park the buses across the road from the top of the bowl and we would enter through the tunnel onto the upper rim of the bowl with our drummers sounding out our cadence as loud as they could.
The sensation of busting out of that tunnel with the drums echoing off the tunnel walls and the crowd cheering you in was an unbelievable experience and one that I will never forget.
Robert Caetta
Ravenna
ONE OF THE GREATEST EVENTS that happened at the Rubber Bowl was the year the circus came to town.
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus arrived in downtown Akron. There was a circus parade that was awesome . . .
Elephants walking on the road, animal cars, performers all parading to the Rubber Bowl. The streets were lined with people. What a day. All of Akron was at the circus.
Susan Phillips
Suffield Township
A highlight at the Rubber Bowl was the lighting of the matches. In a darkened bowl, everyone in the audience struck their match on command. What a glorious event, as thousands of matches emblazoned the bowl and transformed a dark night into a lighted, blazing glory.
To a child, those were nights of splendor.
Harold W. Rowland
Stow
MY HUSBAND AND I MET at the annual Acme-Zip football game in 1969. I was starting my junior year at Akron, had recently broken up with my boyfriend, so I attended the game with my family.
I sat directly behind Jerry, who was attending the game with a friend. We noticed each other and flew paper airplanes together throughout the ball game.
He asked for my phone number. We went on a date the following evening, were engaged by Christmas and married the following July.
From that year (1969) until the Acme-Zip stopped, we never missed the annual event at the Rubber Bowl. We are both still avid fans of the Zips, and attend as many games every year as we can.
We'll be celebrating our 40th anniversary of the day we met in 2009, but it will be in the new stadium.
Rosemary Cannon
Akron
AS A CHILD GROWING UP IN SAWYERWOOD in the '40s and early '50s, the most spectacular memory is the fireworks. But the most enduring memory is the smell of the midget racers' exhaust on weekends.
Remember the one Brownie used to have up on top of his Canton Road Furniture?
G. Milhoan
Cuyahoga Falls
BEING IN HIGH SCHOOL FROM 1952-1956, we looked forward to the Preview Night at the Rubber Bowl.
Each local high school played 15 minutes against another team at the beginning of the school year so each team could preview their talents. Being a female and a nonfootball player, we had another type of ''preview.''
The best and latest style outfit was the goal of the female participants. We shopped for days to find the best outfit for the Rubber Bowl preview. No matter the temperature, we were dressed in the finest. It could have been 75 degrees and one could find us in a wool sweater and wool skirt topped off with wool knee socks if that were dictated by the fashion magazines.
Ann Marshall Hubiak
Akron
MY FONDEST MEMORY OF THE RUBBER BOWL had to have happened over 50 years ago. I was a young boy when my parents took me to the Rubber Bowl for an appearance by the Cisco Kid (played by Duncan Renaldo) and his famous horse Diablo, a beautiful black and white paint.
The Cisco Kid was one of my favorite TV shows at the time. I remember him riding Diablo around the Rubber Bowl for a few laps while waving to everybody. Diablo reared up on his hind legs a few times and the Cisco Kid doffed his sombrero to the crowd.
It was pretty exciting . . . and a memorable experience.
Don Pesich
Worthington
I HAVE MANY GOOD MEMORIES of the Rubber Bowl. We lived on League Street near Martha Avenue and driving to the airport, Kesselring Dairy, Strickland's, Derby Downs and the Rubber Bowl was a special trip.
I was present at the opening ceremonies in the summer of 1940. It was a grand ceremony, and when the Rubber Bowl lights were turned on, only ''BBER BOWL'' came on and the ''R'' and ''U'' were dark. The crowd roared.
John A. Feotis
Holladay, Utah
I WAS AN EMPLOYEE AT GOODYEAR AIRCRAFT and chosen (in the early '40s) to help with a war bond rally. We performed in long evening dresses onstage at the Rubber Bowl.
Can you imagine what a thrill this was for a country girl from Marietta?
Many years later, my daughter and I attended the much-talked-about Jefferson Airplane performance and came away with much more than we bargained for.
Alfreda Layne
Uniontown
MY LATE HUSBAND, J. PATRICK COSTIGAN, was the entrepreneur and creative mind behind the proposed Polydome for the Rubber Bowl.
Although I did not meet him until 2000, when we would drive by the Rubber Bowl, or attend a St. Vincent-St. Mary versus Hoban football game there, he would often talk about the ''what ifs'' had the Polydome become a reality.
The Polydome would have been a new name for the Rubber Bowl in 1986 had J. Patrick Costigan and his group of investors and supporters been able to get the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration and the support of the University of Akron.
There were a few domed stadiums at that time, such as the Metrodome and Astrodome, but none using the polymer see-through materials and structural design that was being proposed for the dome.
Marlene Costigan
Akron
IT WAS A CRISP, CLEAN EVENING (in 1972) as my best girlfriend and I piled into her red Pinto, stashing a couple of bottles of Boone's Farm under the seat.
With the music blasting, we sped off to meet up with friends for a tailgate party before the North vs. East High football game at the Rubber Bowl. It was such a thrill to be doing something a little daring and not giving one thought to the consequences.
After chugging down most of our wine, we made our way up into the stands. Being a novice to drinking any alcohol at all, that cheap wine began to work its magic on me and the entire stadium began to spin. I stumbled into a nearby restroom, which became my salvation from the wrath that my stomach was about to bestow upon me. I needed to get outside into the air.
Swaying and staggering, I made my way to the door only to trip over the threshold, falling headfirst into another body standing outside the door.
I don't remember who won the game that night, but I'll never forget the soft brown eyes looking into mine as he lifted me to my feet.
Over the years when asked how I met my husband, I love to tell our story — ''He caught me on the way down!''
Diane Mohan
Akron
AROUND 1972 OUR FRATERNITY, LAMBDA CHI ALPHA, wanted to show our school spirit for the Akron football team, so we built a papier-mache Zippy that we carried into the Rubber Bowl on game day.
Everything was going well until it started to rain. Zippy disintegrated and the pony keg of beer Zippy was hiding in his ''belly'' was exposed!
I don't remember how we got the keg back out of the stadium.
Basil Galati
Stow
I HAVE LIFELONG MEMORIES of the Rubber Bowl. . . . When I was a little boy, I attended a Billy Graham meeting that changed my life and altered my career choice to a ministry that has lasted over 45 years.
The Rev. Larry Hess
Charlotte, N.C.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Posted 01:14 AM, 11/05/2008
Twenty-seven years ago I went on the first date with my husband to the Rubber Bowl. It was Thanksgiving morning, and we were at the Turkey Day game. Today we still live in the Rubber Bowls backyard, and walk over to see the Zips play or watch fireworks from our front porch. It will be very sad not attending games there, but we are looking forward to visiting the new stadium! Go Zips!!
