A History of Dix Stadium: Home of the Kent State Golden Flashes
Dix Stadium is a multi-purpose sports stadium located on the eastern end of the Kent State University (KSU) campus in Kent, Ohio. It primarily serves as the home of the Kent State Golden Flashes football team, a member of the NCAA’s Mid-American Conference East division. Since 2016, the stadium has also hosted the Kent State women’s soccer team, and since 2019, the women’s lacrosse team. In the 1970s, it was a secondary home for the KSU men’s soccer team, and from 1997 to 2004, it was home to the Kent State field hockey team.
Origins and Construction of Memorial Stadium
Prior to Memorial Stadium, Kent State football games from 1920 to 1949 were played on an rudimentary field behind Merrill Hall, known as Rockwell Field, which lacked substantial seating or facilities. In response to these limitations and growing athletic needs, construction of new fields began in November 1939 along South Summit Street, on the site of the former college farm, which had been cleared for this purpose. The project received funding through the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program that supported public infrastructure improvements during the Great Depression.
By 1941, the playing field and a surrounding cinder track were completed, accompanied by temporary wooden bleachers seating about 1,500 spectators. The first game at the new field, initially referred to as the Athletic Field, was on September 27, 1941, a 58-0 Kent State win over Bluffton College. Adjacent to the football field and track was a baseball field.
After World War II ended, the university saw an increase in male enrollment, so additional facilities were built in the area around what was eventually called Memorial Field. The drive to build a permanent stadium was organized in 1946, led by a committee made up of students, alumni, faculty, and local residents who raised approximately $60,000 in two years. The first game held at the new stadium was on October 14, 1950, a 57-0 win over Marietta College. That was also the stadium's dedication game, where it was dedicated to the 113 KSU students who had died during World War II. The main grandstand sat 5,600 people and included a press box. In 1954, a second permanent grandstand was built opposite the original one using the same design. This raised the stadium's capacity to approximately 12,000. Additional auxiliary bleachers would be added on either side of the grandstands and in the end zones over the years, finally bringing capacity to 20,000 by 1965.
During their stay at Memorial Stadium, Kent State joined the Mid-American Conference in 1951 and qualified for their first bowl game, the 1954 Refrigerator Bowl. As early as 1964, there were discussions about building a new stadium as the campus continued to expand in the late 1950s and 1960s. The 1964 plan specifically called for a new athletic stadium on the southern edge of campus, accessible via superhighways without disrupting central pedestrian areas, though the realized project scaled back from the proposed 55,000 seats.
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The stadium was displaced to make way for a new 12-story library and student center complex, originally known as the University Center, built in the late 1960s and early 1970s adjacent to the stadium site. The main seating areas of Memorial Stadium were dismantled in early 1969 and reassembled at the site of the new stadium in a different configuration. The original south grandstand was moved to be the north end zone seats at the new stadium, while the north grandstand became the south end zone.
From Memorial Stadium to Dix Stadium: Expansion and Relocation
By the mid 1960s, a new stadium was needed for the football program. Rather than build completely new, though, the new stadium, which was also called Memorial Stadium for its first four seasons, was considered an expansion and relocation of the old stadium as all of Memorial Stadium's main seating areas were dismantled in 1969 and moved to the new site further down Summit Street where they were reassembled in a new configuration. Designed as an expansion and relocation of the original stadium, the new venue opened on September 13, 1969, with a 24-14 victory over the University of Dayton before a crowd of 8,172; it retained the name Memorial Stadium until 1971, when it was renamed Dix Stadium in honor of longtime trustee Robert C. Dix.
The $3.5 million Dix Stadium opened on September 13, 1969 and was named, in 1971, after Robert C. Dix, former publisher of the Record-Courier, a daily newspaper in Portage County, Ohio, and a member of Kent State’s Board of Trustees for more than three decades. At opening, the stadium featured an initial seating capacity of 30,520, significantly larger than the original site's peak of around 20,000 seats, supporting Kent State's ambitions within the Mid-American Conference amid regional peer developments like Bowling Green State University's Doyt Perry Stadium (opened 1966 with 23,272 seats).
Approximately 17,000 seats from the original stadium were salvaged and transported to the new site east of campus, where they were reassembled to form key components of the facility that opened as Memorial Stadium (later renamed Dix Stadium) in September 1969. Specifically, the sideline grandstands-including the original south grandstand constructed in 1950 and the north grandstand added in 1954-were repurposed as the north and south end zone seating, respectively, while auxiliary bleacher sections were incorporated into the east sideline stands.
The remaining structures at the original Summit Street site, including any non-reusable elements, underwent full demolition later in 1969 to clear the area for future campus development. The redevelopment of the Memorial Stadium site began in the late 1960s, marking a significant transition from athletic facilities to core academic and student life infrastructure at Kent State University. Parallel to the library, development of the Kent Student Center and adjacent Risman Plaza commenced in 1969 on the site of a former football practice field adjacent to the stadium area.
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Dix Stadium: Structure and Seating
Today, the stadium consists of three separate grandstands on each side of the field except the south side, and has a seating capacity of approximately 25,000. Dix Stadium is laid out with the football field running north-south, with separate seating areas on the west, north, and east sides. The west stands, often referred to as the "home stands", are the largest and include the locker rooms and player facilities beneath them, the press box and suites, and both bleacher and chair back seating for over 12,000 fans. The east stands, built in 2003 to replace the original wooden bleachers, are the smallest section and are the primary student section, with bleacher seating for over 4,000 fans. The north end zone, which is the original grandstand of old Memorial Stadium, is also entirely made up of bleacher seats.
On either side of the east grandstands are spaces for party tents, and the south end zone features a Daktronics video scoreboard, which was put in place in 2008, and an open plaza with concessions.
Renovations and Upgrades
For over three decades Dix Stadium changed very little. Prior to the 2002 season, the old east side stands were demolished and replaced. Other renovations and upgrades have been accomplished over the years, according to David Rush, KSU’s Assistant Athletic Director for Facilities and Operations.
The first major changes to Dix Stadium began in 1992 when an elevator was added to reach the press box and suites, and in 1996 when permanent lighting was added. Although the first night game was held in 1990, permanent lights were not added until 1996. Artificial turf was installed in 1997 and replaced in 2017 with the latest version of FieldTurf.
Prior to the 2007 season, the pressbox was renovated and the north endzone seating was repainted. Before the 2008 season, the south endzone was demolished and replaced with a terrace with new concessions and a new scoreboard. This decreased the seating capacity from 30,000 to 20,500. A brick and wrought iron fence was also constructed around the stadium. A new 36ft. by 20ft.
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Technological Enhancements
Rush stresses that the stadium could not operate efficiently but for the teamwork among his full-time Facility Managers, Jimmy Fetzer and Mark Crohgan, four graduate assistants, numerous undergraduate students, as well as other university department personnel.
“When the stadium was built back in 1969, football, and sports in general, were not as televised,” he notes. “It wasn’t every single day of the week you could turn on TV and see football, basketball, baseball - whatever your heart desired. Now, every one of our five home football games is televised. We’ve had to increase our cabling and our network to support TV in the stadium. While we currently do not have HD capability on the main video board, every TV on the concourse, every TV in our donor lounge, plays in HD. Our football team, our promotions on the field, our halftime performance with our band members - everything is crystal-clear HD, which is really nice when you go get a hot dog and popcorn at halftime and can see everything going on. Along with that, we are increasing our broadband and internet capabilities so, if you come to Dix Stadium, you can turn on your cellular device and use internet Wi-Fi. The big hope is to update our video board to HD.
Multi-Purpose Use and Community Engagement
While conference games and practices of men’s football and women’s soccer and lacrosse teams take precedence, Dix Stadium is also used by the school’s general student population for its recreational sports clubs. The surrounding communities utilize the stadium for a variety of events including high school playoff games, flag football, and more. In addition the stadium also hosts the University’s undergraduate graduation exercises every spring.
This past year, former Kent State quarterback, Julian Edelman, now a wide receiver for the New England Patriots of the NFL, returned to Kent State to receive the diploma that he started working toward in 2006. “I believe it is important to finish what you start,” he said.
Matt Papatheodorou, Director of Athletic Marketing Strategy agrees. “More than anything, I think the longevity of the stadium, the modifications that have occurred over time to try to evolve and grow a better experience for each and every person who walks into the stadium, would be the most important takeaway,” he declares. “It’s paramount that every decision that’s made is done with the intent to make it an enjoyable experience for everyone who attends an event. It truly is a multi-purpose facility, utilized by many teams throughout the year.
Dix Stadium and the Surrounding Athletic Complex
Dix Stadium is located along Summit Street in Kent, just east of the intersection of Summit Street and Ohio State Route 261, on the eastern edge of the Kent State University main campus. The stadium was annexed into the city of Kent in 2002 after having previously been part of Franklin Township. Adjacent to the stadium are facilities and practice fields for several other Kent State athletic teams.
When the stadium was built, a cinder track was included on the site, northeast of the stadium. While the track is no longer used for competitions, it surrounds a natural grass playing surface that was previously known as Zoeller Field, the former home of the Kent State women's soccer team. The field was constructed in 1990 as the home of the field hockey team, becoming the home of the women's soccer team in 1997. Immediately east of Dix Stadium and south of the former Zoeller Field is the Kent State Field House, built in 1990 and expanded in 2014. It includes a full-sized football field, track, weight training facilities, and locker rooms. It is primarily used by the football team for training and practice and the indoor track and field teams for practice and meets. Other KSU sports such as baseball and softball use the field house for practice during winter months. South of Dix Stadium is Devine Diamond, previously known as the Diamond at Dix, the home of the Kent State softball team, with Murphy-Mellis Field, the home of the KSU field hockey team, adjacent on the north along with two natural grass practice fields for football.
Building Champions Campaign
The university began the $60 million "Building Champions" campaign in 2013 to upgrade facilities for all of Kent State's athletic teams as well as raise additional scholarship money. The first project was expansion of the Field House with new locker rooms for indoor track and field, women's soccer, field hockey, and softball, as well as concession areas and restrooms for fans, a project completed in 2014. There were also other plans to both Dix Stadium and the surrounding athletic complex. Among the changes planned were a new Zoeller Field south of the Field House and east of Dix Stadium with seating for 2,150 and a new all-weather track surrounding a soccer field. Additionally, a new parking lot was planned north of the Field House where the former Zoeller Field stands. Improvements planned for Dix Stadium included expanded chairback seating and suite upgrades on the west stands, a new building for the coaches' offices on the north of the stadium, and improvements to the locker room and other player facilities, including a new players' lounge. On the east side, two covered seating areas for students were to be built adjacent to the existing student seating.
Other Events Hosted at Dix Stadium
In addition to being the home venue for the Kent State football team since 1969 and for the Kent State field hockey team from 1997 through the 2004 season, Dix Stadium has also been used for a number of other events. It is a regular host for high school football games, usually Ohio High School Athletic Association playoff games. From 1997-1999, the stadium was the site of the annual rivalry game between Theodore Roosevelt High School and Ravenna High School. In 1998, the OHSAA Division I state semifinal between Canton McKinley High School and Cleveland Saint Ignatius High School was played at the stadium in front of a near sellout crowd. From 1975 to 1981, the Cleveland Browns held their training camp on the campus of Kent State University and used the stadium and practice fields. In 1980, a controlled scrimmage with the Buffalo Bills held in the stadium drew 26,758 fans. During the field hockey team's tenure at Dix Stadium, it was the site of the Mid-American Conference Field Hockey Tournament in 1998 and 2003, and of the semifinal and championship rounds of the 2001 NCAA Division I Field Hockey Championship, held November 16 through 18. It was the first time Kent State had hosted a national championship event since the 1967 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships were held at the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center, and the first national championship hosted by a MAC school since 1992. The 2016 Mid-American Women's Soccer Tournament was held at Dix Stadium, with the semifinals played November 4 and the championship match played November 6, won by the Flashes. It marked the first time Kent State hosted the MAC tournament and was the first time Kent State won the tournament. In preparation for hosting the MAC Tournament, the KSU women's soccer team played most of their home games in the 2016 season at the stadium. From 1970 through 1973, the university's May commencement ceremony was held there, but was moved back to the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center in 1974, where it has remained since. The stadium again hosted commencement in July 1991 because of renovations at the MAC Center. Shortly after the inauguration of university president Lester Lefton in 2006, he announced plans to have one large commencement ceremony at Dix Stadium to begin in 2008, but the plans were later canceled. The stadium was used again for commencement from 2017 through 2019 for Kent State's "One University Commencement Ceremony", which included students from all eight KSU campuses. The 2017 program was highlighted by keynote speaker Octavia Spencer, while the keynote speaker in 2018 was Kent State alum Michael Keaton, who ended his speech with "I'm Batman". The facility has also been used as a concert venue, most recently in 2012 as part of the university's Centennial Campaign when Sheryl Crow and Los Lonely Boys played there. During the filming for the movie Draft Day, the stadium was used as a stand-in for Ohio Stadium in a scene that depicts a football game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Wisconsin Badgers. Dix Stadium was chosen because of its proximity to Cleveland, where most of the filming for the movie was taking place.
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