It’s a whole new ballgame at Tarleton State University’s Memorial Stadium

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Tarleton Athletic Director Lonn Reisman celebrates the grand opening of Memorial Stadium. The west side expansion of the stadium is named in his honor and is part of a $24.6 million renovation project that will improve game-day atmosphere for fans, the student-athlete experience and the luster of Tarleton athletics.

By DAVID SWEARINGEN
August 20, 2019


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STEPHENVILLE — After a $24.6 million renovation and west side expansion, Tarleton State University’s Memorial Stadium reopened this evening, welcoming a fired-up Texan Nation passionate about football and excited about what lies ahead.

“Today we fall in love with Memorial Stadium all over again,” said A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp. “This is as good as it gets. It’s well done. It’s classy. It fits who Tarleton is as a university and as founding member of the A&M System.”

Elaine Mendoza, chairman of the A&M University System Board of Regents, said the renovation and expansion will improve game-day atmosphere for fans, the student-athlete experience and the luster of Tarleton athletics.

The stadium boasts an improved press box, suites, entrances and ticket booths as well as enhanced concession facilities and premium seats with chair backs. Overall seating increases to more than 9,000, and west side stands have been converted for home fans. A $1.2 million, high-definition video board, measuring 66 feet by 22 feet, graces the south end of the field. Track-and-field surfaces got upgrades.

In addition, the Stephenville Independent School District partnered with Tarleton for a dedicated locker room for the high school Yellow Jackets. The Yellow Jackets play at Memorial Stadium.

“This is a great day to be a Texan!” said Tarleton President F. Dominic Dottavio. “This momentous celebration is a reminder of the important role Memorial Stadium plays in the life of the university and the Stephenville community. It will change the landscape of Texan football and track-and-field programs for decades to come.”

The A&M System Board of Regents approved $24 million in 2016 for the project, and longtime Texas entrepreneur and Tarleton Distinguished Alumnus Mike A. Myers gave $2.4 million to have the west side expansion named the Lonn Reisman Athletic Center in honor of the winningest basketball coach in the state.

Tarleton athletic director for almost three decades, Reisman is credited with creating one of the strongest sports programs in the NCAA and one of the largest booster clubs in Division II. Since moving from the NAIA ranks to NCAA II in 1994, Tarleton consistently has placed in the top 25 polls and qualified for national playoffs in every sport under his leadership.

“Tarleton’s athletic programs bring pride and recognition to the university,” Myers said. “Lonn Reisman is an outstanding athletic director and renowned basketball coach, and he deserves to have his name join those of legendary Tarleton coaches like W.J. Wisdom, Oscar Frazier and Cecil Ballow on the school’s athletic facilities.”

Reisman said he is humbled by Myer’s generosity and today’s dedication by Tarleton and A&M University System leaders. “A transformed Memorial Stadium fosters greater pride among our students, student-athletes, coaches, fans, boosters and alumni,” he said. “People have been looking forward to this for more than 30 years. Now it is a reality.”

Memorial Stadium opened in 1951 as a tribute to the 179 Tarleton faculty, staff and students who died in World War II. A major reconstruction took place in 1977, when current features were added. In 1989 seating was expanded, the concession stand remodeled, the field house built and track-and-field facilities renovated.

“The renovation and expansion of Memorial Stadium reflects Tarleton’s rich past and makes a powerful statement about its future,” said state Rep. J.D. Sheffield (District 59). “More than a better place to play football or run track, it is a testament to the university’s ongoing commitment to provide the best possible student experience inside and outside the classroom.”


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5 Comments

  1. Building Generations that Can Do MORE WITH LESS
    thats John Tarleton — Except the Challenge

  2. Last year John Tarleton Recycled ???? pounds of Aluminum.. The Challenge was their and John Tarleton stands Toe to Toe with that Challenge….

    The energy saved versus making a complete new Aluminium can saves enough energy to burn a television on the power grid 3 hours…

  3. On our end, we have the comment that is “Do More With Less”, one that starts “Last year John Tarleton Recycled…”, this comment, the one about moderation and the one about FB, but no long comment on this entry. We do apologize, sometimes our tech gets a mind of its own. Feel free to paste it back on here. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience. – Flash staff

    • I hear you. If you would like you may remove the others small comments I made on the article
      — “It’s a whole new ballgame at Tarleton State University’s Memorial Stadium””—
      is fine with me and does me more justice instead of leaving these since you can show my much longer original ad first comment in which these replies are too and about. These small ones and questions and your inability to print the major ones doesn’t do justice to my small ones. I have my original article pasted on my facebook page.

      Thank you! And have a nice weekend…

    • https://climatemama.com/component/wordpress/?Itemid=11/tag/2019-resolutions#.XcUrTtVKiM9

      A new ballgame? I thought this was the new ballgame. Scroll down… I know Hugh Wolfe a Tarleton alumni was sad his last few days because he could have the time back to reduce his carbon footprints while most men think of his wealth and money. He partnered with a Texas A&M Professor name Dr Nicholas Goddard inventor of the “Filteron” which they took to Chicago and were lied to by testing done by Standard Oil of Indiana in 1970. That was Exxon the Standard oil Companies. Dr. Goddard said lets fight them and Hugh took it as it read. Some say Hugh took $5.2 million and believed the story that the future would provide solution. Hugh savaged the company by making Portable toilets for offshore toilets for offshore drilling site. (How convenient a former Mayor of Stephenville Jack Arthur said to me.) Dr. Goddard returned to Hungary. And dr. Goddard gave Standard Oil of Indiana carbon dioxide global warming that was begun to be tracked in 1967. I told local folks about it and got the labeled the “ozone later”. A&M has the largest football stadium n Texas I hear and it must have made poor old Katy High School jealous or mad.

      If you have heard about the trial of Rex Tillerson and the 1974 inner email’s that circulated in Exxon offices stating that they knew about Global Warming as early as 1974 and Mr Tillerson was nowledgable of it all and he used the fake name Wayne Tracker and that he is guilty because I know much of what Exxon new came from Dr N Goddard…

      https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08062017/exxon-climate-fraud-rex-tillerson-erased-wayne-tracker-emails-witness

      Because the Oil boys of Houston like Bush and Baker of Baker and Bott’s law firm got rid of Gorbachev and put Yeltsin in power because Gorbachev was educated in Western Society and knew the value of Russia’s ore, oil and natural resources but he wanted America to help them build apartment and malls for his friends the people of Russian. Bush and friends could have that so in came Yeltsin. They too knew about grooming Putin. So in 199iish Tillerson began drilling in Siberia with Russia. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/arctic-permafrost-is-thawing-it-could-speed-up-climate-change-feature/ there is the receipt of capitalism or rather Houston’s oil gangs lust for money.. we never helped Russians people and Putin punishes them today. … as early as 1992 Tillerson had ties with Putin.. https://www.desmogblog.com/rex-tillerson … You know the red headed spy girl that infiltrated the NRA and just completed her 18 month jail term and has returned to Russian..see she emailed the banker guy that was her mentor got work Mitt Romney was going to be Secretary of State she said, :what do you think of Mitt Romney as Secretary. Te banker guy was in Russia and she’d had been to a Trump party thing and boom after her email it was soon announced it was going to be Rex Tillerson as Secretary oif State and Trump had never met him.

      I think Tarleton has them where we want them. We got to devise a way where we play games that require minimum of energy. So see as ex ball players we’re back in the game. And the team is unbeatable and that team is Mother Nature. Here is how global warming works. Likening it to a smoker, Earth I’m talking about as a smoker. A smoker has more nicotine cling to their lungs wall okay. Well the earth brings us the spring and if you will inhales carbon dioxide and we had carbon dioxide with our automobile’s, manufactured etc. alright and fall comes around and its exhale time carbon dioxide but doggone the cat the designed this planet set limits of inhaling and exhaling so our produced fums stack up and the planet heats according again to the cat that designed earth. The planet gets hotter. HOUSE RUES! Now I think we have reached 72.9 degrees. Its earths average. Well we gt to turn the volume down so we can keep on playing sports on weekends as fans. The guys on Tarleton’s teams today deserve to be able dto watch sports on weekends like us.

      You guys as fathers and grandfathers along with the Mrs have more reason to devote thought and ways conserve fuel than me. The other night I was reading one of the articles here about a 500 car parking lot and I thought how about 10 of them and students park their cars there during the week and we give them a golf cart. Lol.. of course we’d have a way in emergencies to them to their car for emergency or have emergency cars for them to use for emergency trips like returning home. Think how many single passenger cars will go to and from work tomorrow in America.

      They are close to real huge improvements on refrigerators. An its true cattle have changes coming down the road because of water. I was telling Mr. Wolfe a couple of years before he passed that El Paso was near recycling their sewer water to drinking water and San Antonio is out of water as well the report on Houston that the oil industry has poisoned theirs.

      This 10 year thing that everybody calls it liberal bullshit well it isn’t. Now the ways and means to instill it as a reality is a war zone. See trouble is the Constitution is the constitution. The economy that we began with in President Washington’s time turned out to be a bully’s field day and the earth’s temperature if raising cause bully’s only want more.

      I need rest..any corrections and additions too. I expected fun to be made of me and even attacked. I expect it cause I was educated in the area mostly.

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