Monmouth College Athletics

Athletic Facilities

The call for adequate facilities, both for practices and competition, dates back to the early days of intercollegiate athletics at Monmouth. The 1894 Ravelings contains the general student’s comment that “while we are indeed thankful for what has been done ... Monmouth College now needs a gymnasium. We do not agitate the building of a gymnasium simply because the students need it, but also because the College needs it.” Despite continued pleas for improvements to fields and buildings, the college hesitated and then suffered a devastating fire which destroyed Old Main, Monmouth’s primary academic building, in 1907. This unexpected loss put athletic improvements on hold for several years as the college constructed Wallace Hall and other residential structures for its growing student population.

It was not until 1925 that a permanent gymnasium was constructed on campus. Daniel Everett Waid, an 1897 graduate of Monmouth College and a New York City architect, donated over $80,000 toward the project and oversaw its design. The new building, referred to in a Monmouth Review-Atlas newspaper article as one “which compares favorably with any in the state ... from top to bottom”, was aptly named in honor of Waid, who also designed the college’s Auditorium. Waid Gymnasium, with its hardwood playing floor for basketball, indoor swimming pool (which Waid donated), stage, movie booth, locker rooms and 100-yard running track, opened with a men’s basketball game between Monmouth and Coe on February 21, 1925. The Fighting Scots appropriately won that game in overtime by a 28-26 score.

Waid Gym played host to Fighting Scots basketball, swimming, wrestling and volleyball competition for almost 60 years and is now part of the Huff Athletic Center and houses locker rooms, a training room and health and fitness center.

In 1982 ground was broken on the south end of the Waid Gymnasium for another athletic building and a year later Arthur Glennie Gymnasium was opened. The first college contest in the new gym was actually a volleyball match, a three-game victory for Monmouth over Midwest Conference rival Grinnell in September 1983. The first men’s basketball game in Glennie Gymnasium also resulted in a Fighting Scot victory as Monmouth defeated Cornell 87-73 in their 1983-84 home opener. The Monmouth women made it a clean sweep of home victories, winning their inaugural basketball game in the new facility against Blackburn. Glennie Gym still serves as the present home court for men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball.

Another athletic facility ground breaking was held in 2003 for the $22 million Huff Athletic Center. The Huff Center, opened in the fall of 2003, and houses an indoor track, swimming pool, tennis and basketball courts, batting cages and feature state-of-the-art electronics for track and field.

Football games have been contested on campus nearly as long as the sport has been played at the college, though early newspaper and yearbook stories refer to various off-campus field locations. As the campus grew and changed over the years, the actual playing field site was moved several times until the present field was finished. Bobby Woll Memorial Field, named in honor of one of the college’s greatest all-around athletes and coaches, was dedicated on October 18, 1980 and the first game played resulted in a 21-0 loss to Ripon in the 1981 home opener.

In 2008, the football stadium received the first phase of a three-phase makeover. Phase I included construction of new stadium seating and press box. Phase II saw the installation of artificial turf and permanent lighting. Phase III added a video display scoreboard. The new facility was completed and dedicated in the fall of 2009. The stadium itself was renamed “April Zorn Memorial Stadium” in memory of April Zorn Huff ’59 whose husband, Walter  S. Huff Jr. ’56 made the lead donation for construction of the $4.2 million facility. The actual field, featuring artificial turf, remains known as “Bobby Woll Memorial Field.”

In addition to football, the stadium is also home to the Fighting Scots men’s and women’s track and field teams. For many years both softball and baseball teams maintained separate diamonds for practices and spring games and the college’s soccer teams played their home matches on Woll Field. Renovations on the softball field were begun in 1998 and the new diamond saw its first competition the following spring season.

A generous donation to the athletic department in the late 1990’s allowed for the construction of a new baseball diamond and two soccer fields. Peacock Memorial Athletic Park, located one mile from the main campus on North 11th Street, saw its first intercollegiate action during the 1999-2000 athletic seasons.