Virtual KSU Stadium

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Stadium History

By Tim Richardson
The Topeka Capital-Journal

In the fall of 1918, hundreds of students returned to Manhattan from the battlefields of Europe to resume or begin their college education.

The United States had emerged the victor in World War I, but 48 students of Kansas State Agricultural College were unable to experience the conquest. They never returned alive to the country they served.

College faculty felt obligated to erect a memorial for the students who died in the line of duty. The idea was fused with the need for a new football facility, and Memorial Stadium was born in 1922.

Plans included seating for 22,500 spectators an impressive facility for the era. Other amenities were incorporated into the original plans, but never surfaced after costs for the project outpaced construction.

The price tag reached $500,000, despite original estimates of $350,000.

The stadium housed K-State football for 46 seasons, until the team moved to KSU Stadium in 1968. The names of the fallen war victims remain engraved on a plaque on the stadium's east side.

Although the stadium hasn't witnessed a touchdown pass or first down in more than three decades, suspicious activity continues to stir the hallways beneath. Nick the ghost has startled some of K-State's theater students with his pipe-clanging antics since suffering a fatal football injury in the 1940s or 1950s.

According to legend, Nick haunts the Purple Masque theater, located under Memorial Stadium's east stands. Students have reported overturned paint cans, levitating objects and a mysterious, undefined white figure reportedly belonging to the lurking phantom.

Nick supposedly was carried into the cafeteria, where the Purple Masque stands today, after a football injury. When the gridiron contest was finished, the coach returned to find Nick's lifeless body laying on a cafeteria table.

In an eerie twist, some versions of the story say Nick's parents were killed in a car accident en route to Manhattan to watch the game. According to the legend, Nick looms in the stadium waiting for his parents to arrive.

Although "Nick" appears to be a pseudo name for the ghost, a factual basis might rest with two football players who died in the 1950s. Bob Mayer was a junior fullback who lost a bout with polio in 1951. John M. Holden died in 1953 after a collision with another player during an intramural football game.

"It's a fun myth," said K-State research specialist Pat Patton. "Legends are a lot of fun."

The university wrote a $1.6 million check in 1968 for KSU Stadium. The original seating capacity was 35,000, although an expansion two years later accommodated 7,000 additional spectators.

In the following years, K-State was among the dregs of college football.

In 1990, home attendance for football games averaged less than 24,000 after K-State's dismal 1-10 season the previous year. But with Snyder at the reigns, attendance records were shattered in the 1990s, when the team built a 57-5-1 record.

The stadium has had several other improvements in the past decade, including new scoreboards, the Jumbo-Tron, and the $3.3 million dollar Dev Nelson press box.

Following the 1998 season, the stadium received a $12.8 million facelift, adding 8,000 seats. The revamped home of K-State football now includes a club seating area and 31 additional sky suites, seating more than 50,000 Wildcat fans each fall throughout four quarters.