Memorial Stadium (Bakersfield) - History

History

In 1955, Bakersfield College would move from its original location at Bakersfield High School, to a dedicated campus in Northeast Bakersfield. Memorial Stadium would be the first structure to be completed at the new site. In fact, during the first semester students were served lunches out of the concession stands because the cafeteria was still under construction.

For its first 40 years, Memorial Stadium enjoyed huge success based on its attendance of Bakersfield College football games. Lasting into the early 1990s, it was unusual for a B.C. football game not to have 12,000 fans or more in the stands. Games have been televised live and on tape-delay in the past. The stadium was the home to the first ever junior college bowl game, and California's formerly most prestigious junior college bowl game, the Kern County Shrine Club Potato Bowl. The Potato Bowl, established in 1948, was a fund raiser for the Shriners Hospital for Burned and Crippled Children in Los Angeles. The Potato Bowl no longer exists due to unfair fees demanded by the State Junior College Commission on Athletics (COA) to be a part of the reformed state JC playoff system. The Potato Bowl hence was replaced by the Golden Empire Bowl, which is part of the California J.C. Football State Playoffs, and is supported and sponsored by local businesses. However, the Golden Empire Bowl was not played in 2011. Sponsors cited a lack of ticket money for previous bowl games that left them losing money. These sponsors were hoping to break-even with their sponsorship every year as a way to serve their community.

Memorial Stadium has had numerous football games exceed attendances of 20,000. The largest ever crowd was 23,000 for a high school football game between Bakersfield High School and Bishop Amat Memorial High School in 1994. Memorial Stadium features an all weather track that was updated in 1989. Unfortunately, the track surface is in need of renovation. It hosts high school and junior college track events. The track was once the training track for the Soviet Union track teams when they visited the United States. It also was the track on which Jim Ryun established a world-record in the one-mile run in 1967.

Memorial Stadium occasionally hosts high school games. Until the early 1990s, it was the Friday night home field of both Highland High School and East Bakersfield High School on alternating weekends. Changes by B.C.'s college president in the mid-1990s led both schools to finally install lights on their own fields after decades of renting Memorial Stadium and other fields. Presently, Memorial Stadium is used for high school football games only when it is deemed that an existing high school field is too small to handle the anticipated large crowds; this generally occurs only during playoffs.