November 5, 1938: Rutgers Stadium Opens

Program from the dedication game

November 5, 1938, 75 years ago: Rutgers Stadium opens in Piscataway, Middlesex County, New Jersey, across the Raritan River from the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers College, now called Rutgers University.

For the 1st time since they played each other in the 1st college football game in 1869 -- 69 years minus 1 day earlier -- Rutgers beat Princeton, 20-18.

Rutgers had begun the season playing home games in New Brunswick, at Neilson Field, where they had been playing since 1892. They finished the 1938 season 7-1, their only loss coming at Neilson Field, to New York University (NYU), 25-6.

Before 1892, including that 1869 game, they had played at College Field. In 1931, the College Avenue Gym and its parking lot were built on the site.

In 1953, the Alexander Library, the hub of RU's University Library system, was built on the site of Neilson Field. As far as I know, Rutgers is the only school that tore down a football stadium and built a library on the site. Can you imagine that happening at another school that's now in the Big Ten? Or in the South?

The 1938 Rutgers Stadium, late in its tenure

RU would continue to play home games in football, and sometimes soccer and lacrosse, at the 23,000-seat Rutgers Stadium until 1992. By the time of their undefeated season in 1976, when they committed to playing what they called "bigger time" football, the stadium was hopelessly outdated, and they had begun playing games at Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands.

It was far larger, but well off campus, and visiting teams sometimes drew in bigger crowds, making it seem like a home game. Example: Army's Michie Stadium is 82 miles from Piscataway, but only 48 miles from the Meadowlands.

The current Rutgers stadium

While RU played their 1993 home games at Giants Stadium, the old stadium was demolished, and replaced with a 41,000-seat modern Rutgers Stadium that opened in 1994. It was renamed High Point Solutions Stadium in 2011, and now seats 52,454.

UPDATE: It was renamed HighPoint.com Stadium in 2017, and SHI Stadium in 2019.