The national media darlings get all the love. The apples of the media’s eye — the Notre Dames, Los Angeles Lakers and Green Bay Packers of the world generally receive the focus when discussing sports history, as these are some of the eldest and most renowned sports teams.
But the bombardment of sports history that isn’t “ours” oftentimes distracts a local audience from its own backyard stories, pieces of the past we now build upon.
Thanks to the University of Idaho Special Collections and Archives department and the Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning, Idaho fans are able to retrace Vandal athletics through photographs to the beginning — when our land-grant school in the middle of nowhere, with only a few hundred students, began to dip its toes into the sports pond.
Of course, finding snapshots from 1890s athletics is a rare feat, but Special Collections has still managed to put together a vast compilation of images from years directly following the school’s inception, to today, and everything in between.
While not all of these historical photographs are available on the department’s website, I have been granted access to share some of my personal favorites and a few of the more striking images in the collection.
In 1923, Idaho’s second year as a member of the Pacific Coast Conference, the Vandals got off to a hot start. After taking down Albertson College, with a score of 83-0, Idaho remained at home for its annual local rivalry game which the Vandals had dominated in years prior. As is evident from the picture, the Vandals absolutely crushed the Grizzlies on what should appear a familiar setting. But where were football games held then? This photograph was taken on MacLean Field, Idaho’s football stadium up until 1937, the year Neale Stadium was completed on the present-day site of the Kibbie Dome. Art and Architecture South, then the gym, is perched above, and the Administration Building sits just off-camera to the right. Today, all that remains of MacLean is a leaning “UI” trident cemented in the grass between Memorial Gymnasium and the new College of Education building. By today’s standards, the 1923 Vandals were outstanding. Finishing with a 5-2-1 record, Idaho’s defense allowed an average of only three points per game (14th in the nation) and scored almost 21 per contest (26th in the nation). Idaho’s only two losses, both away from home, were a 17-7 defeat at the hands of Stanford and a 9-0 loss to USC.
Before a lack of necessary funding forced the university to cut the baseball program in 1980, America’s ballgame in Idaho met relative success, especially with four Big Sky championships and two near College World Series appearances in the ‘60s. This photograph, taken in approximately 1937, is the oldest in-game capture I have stumbled across out of countless exhibits. Almost no description accompanied the picture — no names, no opposing team, no exact date. All that is certain is the location. The hillside east of the old arboretum provides the backdrop, and the Administration Building is only just out of sight. The batter’s uniform certainly places this photograph in the ‘30s, judging by the hat, shoes and pants, but a lack of Vandal baseball information prior to the 1960s adds a bit of mystery.
Colton Clark can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @coltonclark95