Bearcat Stadium

Bearcat Stadium is the football stadium of the Northwest Missouri State University Bearcats in Maryville, Missouri and is the oldest continuous site for any NCAA Division II school.It has a capacity of 6,500 and had lights and FieldTurf installed in the summer of 2007.It is part of the Ryland Milner Complex which includes Bearcat Arena in the Uel W. Lamkin Activity Center which is where the college basketball team plays, Martindale Gymnasium, and the Robert P. Foster Aquatic Center. The field is surrounded by the Herschel Neil Track . The playing field itself is called Tjeerdsma Field in honor of the school's winning football coach Mel Tjeerdsma.HistoryThe stadium originally opened in 1917 as Memorial Stadium, which replaced a field on the north side of the Administration Building of the college which had started operations in 1906.In 1961 it was named Rickenbrode Stadium for long-time university business manager and athletic booster William Rickenbrode. Through the 1970s the stadium which had lights was the home field for the Maryville High School Spoofhounds and was used as a venue for various civic functions including the annual 4 July display.In the 1970s Northwest began construction of a new stadium on the west side of the campus. However funds ran out as Northwest began competing for funding with the newly founded Missouri Western State University 40 miles south in St. Joseph, Missouri. In 1988 the State of Missouri under Governor John Ashcroft announced plans to close Northwest altogether. Following spirited opposition, the plans were reversed and Northwest found it in a position of having to aggressively find ways to differentiate it from its rival if it wanted to survive.