Robertson Stadium, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, October 6, 2012.
It happens to all of us and to all things that spring from each of us mortals in the physical world eventually. “The End” is coming for the 70-year old variously past named, but most recently proclaimed Robertson Stadium at the University of Houston.
After the 2012 UH Cougar football season ends, they will be tearing old Robertson down and building a new and larger venue for the Cougars’s 2014 second season in the Big East Conference. Houston will make its 2013 Big East Conference debut playing home games at Reliant Stadium.
Construction on the present Robertson structure began in 1940 as a joint project of the Houston Independent School District and the federal Works Progress Administration program from the Great Depression “New Deal” relief package. It was built in the block bordered by Holman, Cullen, Wheeler, and Scott on property acquired from the Settegast Estate in the Third Ward.
First known as Houston Public School Stadium, and later as Jeppesen until it became Robertson Stadium, the first football game to inaugurate the football/track&field venue unfolded on September 18, 1942, with Lamar HS of Houston defeating Adamson of Dallas by a score of 26-7.
The University of Houston played its first college football game in the old digs four years later, on September 21, 1946, losing 13-7 to Louisiana-Lafayette. Three weeks later, on October 12, 1946, UH won its first collegiate game at the stadium by 34-o roll over Texas A&I.
On May 3, 1970, after UH took over the property, the university formally dedicated that the aging venue would henceforth be called “Robertson Stadium” in honor of Corbin Robertson, who served as Chairman of the UH Athletic Committee for twenty years and the person most often considered as the driving force behind the establishment and success of the UH athletic program.
Robertson Stadium has a listed official capacity of 32,000, but its largest UH game crowd happened only last year on Dec 3, 2011, when the Cougars lost the C-USA championship game to Southern Miss, 49-28.
The largest (eventually Robertson) football venue crowd of all time, however, happened back on December 23, 1962 when the Dallas Texans defeated the Houston Oilers for the third annual old American League Football championship in double over-time by a score of 20-17. 37,981 fans turned out to watch the only single or double over-time game in American Football League history that cold and gloomy day.
I’m not 100% sure about the future identity of the new stadium that will be constructed and open for UH football in 2014, but I’m assuming that “John O’Quinn Field at Corbin J. Robertson Stadium” in shared honor of the two people most responsible for financially supporting Cougar football is still good enough for the new edifice.
The “new” Robertson will comfortably seat 40,000, with feasible, architecturally compatible, and affordable expansion to 50,000, when needed. As a UH alumnus, I will just be happy to see the progress. The old ramps and steep stadium aisle walks of the WPA-inspired baby are getting a little too hazardous for those of us UH Cougars who are long of tooth and short on falling-down dexterity.
“Throw me a bag, Mr. Peanut Man! … No wait; not now! … Not while I’m standing! …. Not nowwwwwww!!!”
The Pecan Park Eagle 
October 8, 2012 at 12:31 am |
A minor correction. The AFL Championship Game would have been played later than December 3rd. It would have been toward the very end of the month.
October 8, 2012 at 2:54 am |
Thanks, Bob! It was a typo. I meant to type “23” and it came out “3” before your mindfulness brought it to my attention for correction.
October 8, 2012 at 1:02 am |
I went to high school with CJ,Jr. and to UH with John.
It was a special time.
I think some of the trash I threw away at Jeppesen is still in the bowels of the stadium?
All honor to it’s names!