Riggs Field

From ClemsonWiki

Riggs Field was Clemson's second football field, serving from 1915 to 1941. It has now been remodelled into the university's soccer stadium. It is named for Walter Merritt Riggs, Clemson president and the first (and fourth) head football coach. Riggs can be said to be the "Father of Clemson Football" insofar as his bringing the game from Auburn to the neophyte Clemson campus is concerned. When Clemson played its first game against Furman on October 31, 1896, only two people on the Clemson campus had ever seen a football game - Riggs, and Tiger backfielder Frank Thompkins, a Tiger team plank-holder.

Laid out in 1915 to replace Bowman Field, it was placed right behind the Rudolph E. Lee-designed YMCA building, finished the following year. Players would dress inside the Y and come down the staircase from the rear portico of the structure to field level.

Riggs Field was dedicated with the October 2, 1915 game against Davidson, a 6-6 tie. With construction underway on the new Memorial Stadium since October, 1941, the last game played on Riggs is versus Wake Forest, on November 15, 1941, with the Tigers shutting out the Demon Deacons, 29-0. Three weeks later, the Japanese Navy attacks Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, setting America's involvement in World War II in motion.

In 1973, Riggs Field was the location for a closing scene of the Burt Lancaster film The Midnight Man.

Riggs Field, with its large oval cinder track, would remain an intramural space through the 1970s, providing a site for Greek Week, Dixie Day, and the Special Olympics. In late March 1980, without informing anyone, the athletic department began grading of the historic Riggs Field site for transformation into the new soccer stadium. Dixie Day was moved to the soccer field located north of Death Valley on short notice.

The remodelled facility, seating 6,500, opened its new era on September 1, 1987 with a Men's soccer team win over UNC-Asheville, 8-0.