Memorial Field House
Memorial Field House is a multipurpose facility connected to Ferris Athletic Center. The facility contains an indoor 1/10-mile track, indoor tennis courts, and other practice facilities for athletics.
Groundbreaking ceremonies for the new field house, called an “athletic cage,” took place on October 25, 1947. At the time, construction costs were estimated to be about $465,000. A new field house was needed due to limited space and availability for teams in the primary campus athletic facility, which was located in Alumni Hall. President G. Keith Funston laid the cornerstone at the 1948 commencement sprinkling lucky pennies into the mortar.
Memorial Field House was dedicated on February 12, 1949, commemorating the 70 Trinity students who had given their lives in World War II. Brigadier General Archie Olds of the United States Air Force gave the dedication address with about 1,500 persons in attendance. Of those in attendance for the dedication were members of the Trinity A.F.R.O.T.C. program as well as 500 alumni who had seen service in wartime.
Within the new facility, there was to be room for the following: an indoor 1/10th-mile dirt track, removable wooden flooring for basketball, and seating capacity for up to 3,000 persons. The field house could be used for a variety of athletic events, especially focused on indoor training in bad weather for football and baseball. Additional uses would be for physical education classes, and intramural sports. The Field House was also used as a general event facility in case of inclement weather and was the location of several commencement ceremonies.
Sources
Trinity College Athletics: Memorial Field House
Trinity College in the Twentieth Century (2000) by Peter and Anne Knapp, p. 144.
Trinity Tripod, 11/24/1948.
Trinity Reporter, July 1948.
Trinity College Alumni News (December 1947), p. 6.