Kibbie Dome
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Kibbie ASUI Activity Center | |
|---|---|
| Kibbie Dome, Cowan Spectrum (basketball) | |
| Location | S Rayburn St Moscow, ID 83844 |
| Broke ground | 1969 |
| Opened | 1975 |
| Owner | University of Idaho |
| Operator | University of Idaho |
| Surface | Astroturf |
| Tenants | |
| University of Idaho Vandals (Football, basketball, tennis, indoor track & field) |
|
| Capacity | |
| 16,000 (football) 7,000 (basketball) |
|
The Kibbie-ASUI Activity Center, more commonly known as the Kibbie Dome, is an enclosed structure with a barrel-arched roof at the University of Idaho in Moscow, the home of the Idaho Vandals. Completed in 1975, it is used for competition in four intercollegiate sports: football, basketball, tennis, and indoor track & field. Since February 2001, the Kibbie Dome has been referred to as the Cowan Spectrum for basketball games. The elevation of the playing field/court is at 2620 feet (798 m) above sea level.
Contents |
[edit] Construction
The stadium was built in stages and took several years to complete. Originally, the new football stadium was to be outdoors and seat over 23,000 spectators, with an adjacent 10,000 seat arena for basketball. Budget cuts and political wrangling in the early 1970s caused a change in the scope of the stadium project. It changed to enclosing a smaller capacity football stadium, allowing use as a basketball arena (and indoor track and tennis as well). This multi-purpose concept had been recently used at Idaho State in Pocatello, where the Minidome had opened in 1970.
Construction on the concrete grandstands started soon after a fire destroyed the condemned wooden Neale Stadium in November 1969[1]. The stadium, which opened in 1936, had been condemned after the 1968 season, and the Vandal football team planned on playing its limited home schedule for the next two seasons at WSU's Rogers Field in Pullman. After a fire significantly destroyed that stadium in April 1970, both schools played their 1970 home games in Spokane at Joe Albi Stadium. The Vandals' game with WSU that September was dubbed the "Displaced Bowl." [2] A lopsideded win for the Cougars, it was WSU's only victory in a stretch of 22 games.
Back in Moscow, the new "Idaho Stadium" was ready for the 1971 football season, and the Vandals responded by going 8-3 and winning the Big Sky title. In the summer of 1972, an astroturf field was installed. The arched roof and end walls were completed in time for the 1975 football season.
The enclosed stadium was renamed that year for William H. Kibbie, a construction executive from Salt Lake City and the primary benefactor of the project; he contributed $300,000 to initiate the funding drive.[3][4]
Bill Kibbie (1918-88), originally of Bellevue, Idaho, was a UI student for just a few weeks in 1936 before he had to leave the university, due to family hardship. He entered the construction business, and after service as a B-24 pilot in World War II, was very successful as the head of a major contracting company in Utah. [5] The acronym "ASUI" is for the Associated Students of the University of Idaho, the student government.
When the university announced it would enclose its football stadium, the fledgling Trus-Joist Company of Boise bid on and got the project. While steel and aluminum were the products of the day for domes and large unsupported buildings, Trus-Joist saw the UI stadium as a chance to demonstrate the strength, durability, and economy of their engineered wood products. From the final design to the end of construction, the enclosure project took just 10 months and $1 million to complete. In 1976, the Kibbie Dome roof won the “Structural Engineering Achievement Award” from the American Society of Civil Engineers.*[6]
The Kibbie Dome's roof spans 400 feet (122 m) from sideline-to-sideline, and its maximum height is 150 feet (45 m) above the hashmarks. (Holt Arena, on the campus of Idaho State University in Pocatello, has an opposite geometry: its arched roof spans the length of the football field, rather than its width, resulting in a very low roof at the end lines and goal posts.)
Soon after completion, problems arose with the roof's exterior. The 4.5 acre (1.8 hectare) outer surface was applied as a sprayed foam, and was found to be unsuitable for the extended annual temperature range of northern Idaho. The significant expansion and contraction caused fractures; leaks were occurring and wood rot was a potential problem by 1980. After an extended period of finger-pointing and threatened legal action, an out-of-court settlement was reached. A new superstructure with a composite roof was built over the original. Completed in the summer of 1982, the second roof shielded the first and solved the problem.
[edit] Football
The Kibbie Dome officially seats just 16,000 for football, making it the smallest venue in Division I-A, although a record crowd of 17,600 was recorded for a game with Boise State in November 1989, during the school's Big Sky era. The football field runs an unorthodox east-west, with the press box on the south side.
When Dennis Erickson returned as head football coach in 2006, there was talk of adding a second deck to the stadium to increase the football seating to 25,000, and building a new basketball arena. In February 2007, the state board of education appropriated funds to study expansion possibilities.
When not used for football, the astroturf field can be rolled up in about an hour, revealing 93,000 square feet (2.13 acres, 0.86 hectares) of polyurethane tartan surface which is used for indoor tennis and track & field. The five-lane track is 290 meters (317 yds) in length, and there are 9 tennis courts. Basketball and volleyball courts are also lined on the tartan infield.
[edit] Basketball
The stadium has also served as the home of the Vandal basketball teams, providing increased seating capacity over the venerable Memorial Gym (built in 1928), a block to the east. The basketball court is positioned at midfield on the south sideline, in front of the press box and the south grandstand, with temporary seating on the north, east, and west. The main court was originally smooth tartan rubber, poured directly onto the concrete floor, resulting in very hard and unforgiving surface. It was replaced with a conventional hardwood floor in the fall of 1983. The wood floor is placed directly over the top of the old tartan floor, and is assembled from small sections.
During basketball games, the converted Kibbie Dome is now referred to as the Cowan Spectrum, named for Bob and Jan Cowan, who financed the current configuration. Since February 2001, the new basketball layout has been separated from the rest of the stadium by massive black curtains to give the court a more intimate "stadium-within-a-stadium" feel, with a reduced seating capacity of 7,000. Temporary Daktronics scoreboards are placed over the north and south stands during games.
During the early 1980s, with Don Monson as head coach (the father of former Minnesota head coach Dan Monson; both are UI alumni), the Kibbie Dome was considered one of the 20 toughest home courts in college basketball by Sports Illustrated, often exceeding over 11,000 in attendance. From January 1980 to February 1983, the Vandals won 43 consecutive games at the Kibbie Dome, and Monson's home record in his final four seasons was 51-2 (.962). The venue hosted three Big Sky Conference men's basketball tournaments (by winning the regular season title), in 1981, 1982, and 1993. (The Vandals departed the Big Sky for the Big West Conference in 1996, then moved to the WAC in 2005.)
[edit] Additions
The Kibbie Dome has undergone a couple of significant additions. In August 1982, seven years after the stadium was enclosed, the East End Addition was completed, providing the entire athletic department with locker rooms, offices, a weight room, athletic training facility, and equipment room.
In 2004 the facilities were again enhanced with the addition of the 8000 square foot Vandal Athletic Center, home to the Norm and Becky Iverson Speed and Strength Center; the renovation of the men’s and women’s basketball, football, and volleyball locker rooms, and the addition of a state-of-the-art hydrotherapy pool (ARC).
[edit] Adjacent practice fields
August 2005 saw the completion of the SprinTurf installation on the former grass practice field east of the Kibbie Dome. The days of "off-limits" are gone, as UI students now have state-of-the-art playing fields available for year-round use. The $1.2 million SprinTurf project included lighting and fencing. A field that previously had just 300 usable hours annually as an "intercollegiate athletics only" field (for natural turf varsity football practice), is now available for up to 2000 hours per year. The project was funded through the Kibbie Dome turf replacement fund.
The two 75-yard fields are adequate for team practice for football (and soccer) as well as for intramural competition, but short enough to have two fields in the space available. Each field is a full half-field (with end zone & goal post) plus an additional 15 yards beyond the 50-yard line. An unmarked 10 yard median separates the two fields; the total length, with end zones, is 160 yards. The fields run north-south. The former natural turf fields were lined as a regulation football field running north-south, with a half field at the north end running east-west. An added benefit of the synthetic surface is an estimated $50,000 annual savings in field maintenance.
[edit] Nearby facilities
On the west side of the Kibbie Dome is the Dan O'Brien outdoor track & field stadium. To the south is the university's 18-hole golf course. To the east is the Memorial Gymnasium, the swim center, the physical education building, and six outdoor tennis courts. Additional tennis courts are on additional sites on the east side of campus.
[edit] External links
- University of Idaho - Kibbie Dome history
- University of Idaho: Campus Buildings - Kibbie-ASUI Activity Center - 1975
- Kibbie Dome - UIAthletics.com
- Cowan Spectrum - UIAthletics.com
- Vandal Athletic Center 2004
- UI Athletics.com - SprinTurf project - Summer 2005 - photo gallery
- University of Idaho Alumni Hall of Fame - 1978 - William H. Kibbie class of 1940
- University of Idaho Alumni Hall of Fame - 2004 - Robert G. Cowan '59
- Erickson Era II off to solid start - The Seattle Times 07-Sep-2006
- Essay on Art Troutner - Idaho Public Television
- Terraserver USA.com aerial photo and USGS topo map
| Football Stadiums of the Western Athletic Conference |
|---|
| Aggie Memorial Stadium (New Mexico State) • Joe Aillet Stadium (Louisiana Tech) • Aloha Stadium (Hawaii) • Bronco Stadium (Boise State) • Bulldog Stadium (Fresno State) • Mackay Stadium (Nevada) • Kibbie Dome (Idaho) • Romney Stadium (Utah State) • Spartan Stadium (San José State) |
| Current basketball arenas in the Western Athletic Conference |
|---|
| Cowan Spectrum (Idaho) • Event Center (San José State men) • Lawlor Events Center (Nevada) • Pan American Center (New Mexico State) • Save Mart Center (Fresno State) • Smith Spectrum (Utah State) • Stan Sheriff Center (Hawaii) • Taco Bell Arena (Boise State) • Thomas Assembly Center (Louisiana Tech) |
