Have you never been to a night game at Dartmouth's Memorial Field and wondered what it's like? A fellow who does a website called Stadium and Arena Visits shot a little amateur video from the visiting stands at the Dartmouth-Princeton game last fall:
It turns out the fellow does write-ups on the stadiums and arenas he visits. Along with this clip he included a link to an earlier rating of Memorial Field HERE. (That review was before the home stands were replaced, leaving him to pontificate about "the strangest makeshift bathroom I have ever seen," and note that, for men, "underneath the seats is one giant trough.")
The old review includes this 2021 update, which surprisingly does not mention the new home stands, press box and yes, up-to-date restrooms:
After a visit to the hockey arena, I was able to walk across the street and catch the second half of a Friday Night game against Princeton. It was nationally televised and both teams near the top of the standings helped the atmosphere. The crowd on-hand was decent, but not huge. They did bring the noise and I heard some really good roars from the outside as I walked to the stadium. A notable difference from my visit several years ago. Overall, it's become one of the better atmospheres in the league. Otherwise, Memorial Field hasn't changed and the only point adjustment was on the scoreboard as it is aging in respect to the video becoming comparatively smaller.
Green Alert Take: He's hardly alone in commenting on the size of the Memorial Field video screen. Still find it kind of hard to believe he didn't notice the new home side.
For what it's worth, the fellow has reviews of each of the other Ivy League football facilities:
And here are his Ivy League stadium ratings (out of 100) based on location, accessibility/parking, exterior, concourse, food, interior, scoreboard, displays, cost, fan support, atmosphere and prestige:
64.5 Dartmouth Memorial Field
64.5 Princeton Stadium
63.0 Harvard Stadium
62.5 Penn's Franklin Field
50.0 Yale Bowl
49.5 Brown Stadium
45.5 Columbia Wien Stadium
44.0 Cornell Schoellkopf Field
Green Alert Take: I'm sure the folks at Yale love having the Bowl being all-but tied with Brown Stadium, which would be at the bottom of my ranking with Princeton would be at the top. Harvard has wonderful views and history but oh, those concrete seats. Franklin Field's so big and old it feels full of ghosts, and seats are simply too far from the field in oversized Yale Bowl.
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Out of curiosity, I checked the ratings for Patriot League stadiums the reviewer visited. Turns out he'd been to four and they scored this way:
59.0 Lehigh's Goodman Stadium
55.5 Lafayette's Fisher Stadium
47.0 Colgate's Andy Kerr Stadium
44.0 Bucknell's Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium
Green Alert Take: I'd have Fisher Stadium first and Christy Mathewson second. Goodman Stadium is fine but like Yale Bowl, you almost need binoculars from the 50-yard line because the seats are so far removed from the field.
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It was a visit to Thompson Arena that led the stadium visitor to stop by for another look at Dartmouth's Memorial Field. Can't say he was terribly impressed by the fan atmosphere inside Thompson. Find his review HERE.
Green Alert Take: We're on the same page regarding the lobby for Thompson. I still find it unbelievable the college has never expanded and modernized it.
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EXTRA POINT
Following up on yesterday's PAT about our '84 VW breaking down, I should note I had a lot of time to ponder things on my long walk back home. I found myself thinking, and not for the first time, that high school driver education or driver training classes should include a week or two of basic mechanics. Everyone should know how to change a tire, replace windshield wipers and fluid, jump a car, check the oil, change the oil, check the radiator (coolant/antifreeze) and be able to make a decent guess at the problem when something does go wrong.
As I said, I had a lot of time to think while walking home and here's another class I believe high schools should offer. Correction, high schools should be required to offer, and that's a class in personal finance.
In their final semester before graduation when – some are about to enter the "real" world – every high schooler should be learning useful things like the true cost of credit card interest, what to look for in buying car insurance and about loans, college and otherwise. They should be taught basic information about checking accounts, investing, stocks, CDs, annuities, 401Ks and saving for retirement. I suppose they should be taught about the pluses and minuses of crypto currency these days as well. They should all be given sample financial life stories and have to use those numbers to file their simulated taxes before April 15.
Trigonometry and calculus are great but few of us ever use that stuff. I went to college as a math major and while I did a 360 (see what I did there?) I would have been much, much better off learning a lot more about personal finance and less about sine, cosine, tangents, derivatives and logarithms.
