 Memorial Stadium circa 1965 | |
 | |
| Former names | Athletic Field, Memorial Field |
|---|---|
| Location | Kent, Ohio, United States |
| Coordinates | 41°08′52″N 81°20′37″W / 41.147905°N 81.343535°W |
| Owner | Kent State University |
| Operator | Kent State University |
| Capacity | 7,000 (1950–1954) 12,000 (1954–1965) 20,000 (1965–1969) |
| Surface | natural grass |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | 1939 (playing field) 1950 (grandstand) |
| Opened | 1941 (playing field) 1950 (grandstand) |
| Closed | 1968 |
| Demolished | 1969 |
| Tenants | |
| Kent State Golden Flashes (NCAA) Football (1941–1968) Men's track and field (1941–1968) | |
Memorial Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium in Kent, Ohio, United States, on the campus of Kent State University. Its primary use was as the home field for the Kent State Golden Flashes football team and also served as the home venue for the KSU men's track and field team. The football and track teams had already been playing on the site since 1941, but with temporary bleachers for seating. The permanent grandstand built and dedicated in 1950, which also included a press box, was the first phase of the stadium, and was later followed by a duplicate grandstand on the opposite side of the field in 1954. Initial plans called for the seating to eventually surround the field, though these plans were largely never realized. During the 1960s, additional bleacher seats were added separate from the two main grandstands on all sides of the field, and brought seating capacity to approximately 20,000 by 1965.
Campus developments in the 1960s and the need to keep the stadium on par with other facilities in the Mid-American Conference, however, led university officials to recommend building a new stadium on a different site rather than continue to expand Memorial Stadium. The stadium was displaced to make way for a new 12-story library and student center complex, originally known as the University Center, built in the late 1960s and early 1970s adjacent to the stadium site. The main seating areas of Memorial Stadium were dismantled in early 1969 and reassembled at the site of the new stadium in a different configuration. Today, the site of Memorial Stadium is largely occupied by the visitor parking lot for the Kent Student Center while the original grandstand of Memorial Stadium is still used as the north end zone at Dix Stadium.