Vintage Memorial Stadium Postcard - University of Illinois - Football Game - Fighting Illini - October 2026
I'm a postcard guy. Sending postcards to people is something that I find joy in doing when we are traveling. I send them to my Mom, Nat's Grampy, my friend Matt and others. They're harder and harder to come by these days as people just don't send postcards like they used to - from travel destinations or ordinary places.
I've been thinking about creating my OWN postcards to send. I try to send hand-written notes to people from time-to-time, but those are on my own personalized correspondence cards. A post card, from a place, is different. I've long wanted to send postcards from Twin Lakes, Wisconsin. But, alas, they don't exist. I've also thought about Downers Grove ones. And, University of Illinois ones.
That lead me to Ebay. Where, you can find vintage postcards from all of those places: Twin Lakes, Downers Grove and the University of Illinois.
Fumbling around on Ebay recently, I came across this vintage postcard (pasted below) of the University of Illinois Memorial Stadium (home of my Fighting Illini Football team, of course) and I was struck by a couple of things that I think are worth calling out.
First...have a look at the photo on the postcard. This is NOT my photo, but rather a copy that I pulled from this Ebay listing CKPostcards. Here's the front showing (what appears to be) the Illini on offense, wearing the traditional O-B-O uniform (orange pants, blue jerseys, orange helmets) playing an opponent in all white on a sunny, Saturday afternoon in Champaign, Illinois:
What jumps out to you?
The end zones, right?
The orange and white diamonds (squares?) across the end zones. How adorable. Are they real? Or, were they added after the photo was taken? There are shadows on the end zones from the goal posts, so that sort-of indicates that they looked like this?
What else do I see?
The student section is on the West side. So is the home team. And, that Block I? Is it real? Or, painted on the photo? Either way, it is awesome. But, could it be "really there"?
I found this other Vintage Memorial Stadium postcard on Ebay. It shows a similar orange Block I in the student section, but it also has the Marching Illini on the field, when they would be doing a card stunt, right? But, I'm thinking this indicates that the postcard at the top - with the Block I and the orange-and-white diamonds in the end zone is real. Right? Here, below, is the other one:
What else jumps out in the original postcard? Here, below, is it again:
Also....The goalposts are white and quaint.
The Illini have way, way, way more guys on the bench than their opponent. I count about 30 guys on the bench for the away team. Means they traveled with 40ish players?
For those of you who know/don't know, I was a punter (backup punter) on the Fighting Illini football team in the 1990's when I was an undergraduate student in Champaign. Here's a 'those were the days' post with one of the team photos from the Coach Ron Turner years that I'm in.
In this postcard: The coaches/other people on the away side sideline? They're all on a knee. Is that so the fans can "see" the game? If so, that's wild.
The track is around the field, still there.
The west side stands of Memorial Stadium? They look the exact same today. That's neat.
Here's the back of the original postcard (diamonds in the end zones):
But...back to the end zones.
Did the end zones ever look like that at Memorial Stadium?
Here's what they look like today, below. Orange with blue 1LL1NO1S (Ahem....we know that everybody hates that custom font):
Memorial Stadium celebrated it's 100th anniversary a few years ago. The University produced this video about the football palace: A House of Brick: 100 Years of Memorial Stadium. In it, we find some clues about the history of the end zones inside Memorial Stadium. (Now...Gies Memorial Stadium).
The University Athletic Department has a page up for the Dedication Game. Here's a photo that came up during the rededication of Memorial Stadium in 2024 of the original dedication game. What do we see? Blank (unpainted) end zones.
Here's a screenshot from the video when they talked about dedicating the stadium. This is 1924. It appears that originally, the end zones were, well...blank. So was mid-field. Empty.
What else happened at that first, dedication game in 1924? Oh...only the greatest performance by a player in the history of college football. Our own Red Grange. Here's another screenshot from the video showing Red Grange entering the end zone (a blank, unpainted end zone):
Oh, he just scored four touchdowns in the first 12 minutes of the game. He also later ran for a 5th "tuddy". And...threw for a sixth touchdown. (Like Al Bundy).
Is that all?
No. He also had two interceptions.
And this was against the Michigan Wolverines, who were world beaters then.
I've posted A LOT about Memorial Stadium and the Fighting Illini football team over the years.
2007: I covered the Memorial Stadium renovation (new suites, new north end zone, etc)
2016: We met a cosplaying Red Grange. Love this. They should bring it back to Grange Grove.
2018: We went to Homecoming. It was not well attended.
All of that happened inside of Memorial Stadium. A brick and stone palace of College Football (With a terrible south horseshoe).
And, based on my little bit of research, that also means that Memorial Stadium started with blank (unpainted) end zones in 1924. And, we have orange end zones with blue ILLINOIS across them (Along with a State of Illinois outline with Block I at mid-field) today, in 2026.
I can't believe it, but I'm heading down a DEEP, DEEP Memorial Stadium end zone rabbit hole. To try to figure out if those diamond end zones were actually a thing. I''ll create a post with what I find.
Comments
Post a Comment
Be nice to each other here.