Homewood field celebrates a century of success

Over the past 100 years, Johns Hopkins has had a voluminous history. Replete with breakthroughs and advancements in science, engineering, academia, and education, Hopkins has become one of the world's most elite universities.

So what are some of the constants during this century of illustriousness? Hard work? Dedication? Inspiring cafeteria food? How about a staple of the Homewood campus since 1907, the aptly named, Homewood Field.

According to "A History of the University" by John French, before the Homewood campus was home to Johns Hopkins, it was fairly difficult to make provisions for sports. The original campus was in downtown Baltimore City, and in order to provide athletics for both undergraduate and graduate students, the school laid out fields for baseball, lacrosse, and football at Clifton Park. But in 1895, Clifton became a public park and reservoir, which meant that Hopkins could not use it for recreation. Players made use of the fields at Druid Hills Park, as well as the Baltimore Athletic Club's facilities. Trustees of the university would provide transportation to these locations, usually hauling athletes in horse drawn omnibuses. But as student enrollment increased, it became more and more apparent that new athletic facilities were needed.

When the University moved to the Homewood campus, it became a vision to lay out an athletic field that was easily accessible from McCoy. The northern portion of the Homewood property was given to Johns Hopkins in 1902, and by 1904 a development plan was approved, which called for playing fields along this northern boundary. The Homewood committee gave out contracts for draining and grading the area, and the field was ready for use by October of 1907. The football team completed its inaugural season at with a 2-1-2 record at the new Homewood Field. The lacrosse team played its first game at Homewood on March 29, 1908 defeating the alumni team 3-1.

Associate Athletic Director Ernie Larossa recognizes how rare having something as durable as Homewood Field really is. "Anything that's been around for one-hundred years that's still usable is pretty impressive. And when you think about 100 years ago, Hopkins had less than 1,000 students, an all male population, and we were competing out there in football and lacrosse, it's pretty unique."

In 1919, the Varsity Club, comprised of former Johns Hopkins lettering athletes, took over the Hopkins athletics program. The club was empowered to run athletics for five years, and in that time, added knock-down stands to increase seating capacity at Homewood Field. Concrete stands were constructed a short while later.

While the school was attempting in some respects to become a "football school," the lacrosse team flourished at Homewood Field, winning national championships in 1923, 1924, 1926, 1927 and 1928.

In 1928 lacrosse became an Olympic demonstration sport and it was decided that the top six teams in the country should engage in a playoff to determine who should represent the United States.

Hopkins defeated Mt. Washington and Navy, and in the final game in front of 12,000 at Homewood Field, Hopkins defeated the University of Maryland Terrapins to earn their ticket to Amsterdam.

In the 1930s, the school began to become concerned with the over-commercialization of athletics, and that a large portion of the student body participated in no athletics.

In his book Recreation and Athletics at Johns Hopkins: A One-Hundred-Year History, Dr. G. Wilson Shaffer outlines how the University, under President Joseph Ames, decided that the entire athletics program was to be placed under the control of faculty and a major emphasis of the program would be on intramural sports and allowing athletic opportunities for all students.

Gate receipts would also be eliminated at Homewood Field, allowing for free admission. In order for this to happen, a gym was developed, after which time many new sports teams were instated at Hopkins.

After World War II, student enrollment increased dramatically at Hopkins due to the high number of students attending under the G.I. Bill. For most of the late 1940s and early 1950s, Homewood field was often filled to capacity for football and lacrosse.

For afternoon games in football and lacrosse, those who wished to get a seat came an hour or two early and ate lunch in the stands.

Robert "Bob" Scott (the namesake of the Robert Scott Gymnasium) remembers how crowded the games used to be.

"Back in those days, when Homewood Field would pack in over 10,000 people for a lacrosse game, our seating really was not much more than 9,000. And with people standing all the way around the fence five or six feet deep, the entire place was packed," he said.

"And the stands at Homewood Field are probably as close to the field as any stadium around. I guess they still refer to it as the Yankee Stadium of lacrosse because the crowds then at Homewood Field were probably the biggest crowds of any place to watch a lacrosse game," he continued.

Scott was a captain of both the football and lacrosse teams, plus an All-American in Lacrosse. He became the coach of the Lacrosse team in 1954, and under his 20-year tenure as coach the team won seven national championships. He then became athletic director and retired in 1995.

In the 1960s, general renovations to the athletic facilities as a whole were initiated. The Newton H. White athletic center was constructed and a new center section of the bleachers at Homewood was constructed, topped with a new press box facility as well as an enclosed box for the president of the University and a room for radio broadcasting.

Also, in 1966 the North-South Lacrosse all-star game took place at Homewood Field. In that same year, the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, located just north of the field, was dedicated.

But even in the past 25 years, Homewood Field has and is still being developed further. The field is also being used to hold major events. The grass surface, which suffered a beating from both the lacrosse and football teams, was replaced in 1982 by Astroturf.

"Initially we changed it to the Astroturf for the 1982 World Lacrosse Games. It also allowed us to play not only football and lacrosse, but also our two soccer teams, men's and women's, and field hockey. It was nice with the artificial turf because every team could play and it wouldn't make any difference," Scott said.

Homewood Field again played host to the World Lacrosse Games in 1998. In preparation for the games, construction was completed on the Schelle Pavilion, which added seating for 4,900 more fans. In 2005, field turf replaced the Astroturf.

To commemorate the anniversary, Johns Hopkins Athletics has designed a patch which the school has utilized on both printed material and on team uniforms.

Larossa was instrumental in creating the patch. "Our lacrosse coaches, specifically Bill Dwan and I, developed the idea of having a patch to commemorate the 100th year and when I talked to him about it, we were talking about it in terms of lacrosse.," he said.

"But it's not just the 100th year of Homewood Field for lacrosse, it's the 100th year of Homewood Field for anyone who calls Homewood Field home," Larossa continued.

It would be impossible to recount all of the memories that Homewood Field has provided to Hopkins over the past 100 years.

For some former athletes, however, such as head football coach Jim Margraff, there are certain memories which stand out. Margraff was the star quarterback at Hopkins from 1978-1981, and holds many moments on Homewood Field close to his heart.

"It was the last game of my senior year. We had not beaten Western Maryland, who was our big rival, and we scored with a couple seconds left to beat them. The score was tied and we were kicking a field goal to win. They blocked (the kick) and their All-American safety picked it up and ran with it, but as he tried to pitch it to a teammate, the ball hit the ground and we recovered and scored on a quarterback sneak to seal the win."

"Also Bill (Stromberg) was a great wide receiver and Billy set the Division III career record for receptions in that game. He was a great, great player."

Only one more question is left to be asked. What does the future hold for the historic Homewood Field?

"I don't know of any plans to go anywhere else," Larossa said. "I think that everybody who utilizes Homewood Field and has seen the changes that we have made in the last several years."

"We added the championship recognition banners out in the stadium for our lacrosse team and we just received the ones for all of our fall sports which should be up sometime in the next two to three weeks," he said.

"I think what we have is pretty unique and pretty special.We're just trying to enhance the feelings when you come to Homewood for a game."