Fifty years ago — Aug. 23, 1975 — the University of Illinois’ Memorial Stadium seemed to be the ideal location for a National Football League exhibition matchup between Jack Pardee’s Chicago Bears and Don Coryell’s St. Louis Cardinals.
After all, game marketers thought it was a short 135-mile drive for Chicagoans and a slightly longer 180-mile trip from St. Louis. Plus, the thousands of central Illinois sports fans would surely make the short jaunt to Champaign to see two of their favorite teams.
Likewise, Bears administrators imagined, those local fans would flock to see Chicago veterans Bobby Douglas, Virgil Carter, Doug Buffone, Wally Chambers and others like newest draft picks Walter Payton, Bob Avellini, Doug Plank and Roland Harper and former Illini Revie Sorey and Tom Hicks. (Payton ultimately sat out the game due to an elbow injury.)
Cardinal stars included quarterback Jim Hart, running backs Jim Otis and Terry Metcalf, wide receiver Mel Gray, tight end Jackie Smith, linemen Dan Dierdorf and Conrad Dobler, cornerback Roger Wehrli and kicker Jim Bakken.
Tickets for the 1:30 p.m. Saturday kickoff were cheap — $7 for most seats, $5 for college students and $2 for high school age and younger. The contract called for a three-way split of the ticket sales, one-third to the Bears, one-third to the Cardinals and one-third to Illinois.
Well, shall we say that those sales expectations fell a bit short? As Chicago Tribune writer Bob Markus remarked in his column lead about the 19,127 who ultimately showed up, “I’ve seen bigger crowds watching the bears in Lincoln Park Zoo.”
Echoed fellow Tribune writer Don Pierson, “If we have future ticket sales like this, the teams may choose to hitchhike. Had the Bears and Cardinals advertised a track meet instead of a football game, they’d have drawn more. It just goes to show that the fans down here don’t need a program to tell the players; they don’t care who the players are.”
The action on the brand-new Memorial Stadium artificial turf was just slightly more exciting. A pair of Bakken field goals provided the Cardinals with a six-point halftime lead. St. Louis added a Hubert Ginn touchdown in the third quarter to build the lead to 13-0. The Bears rallied in the fourth quarter on a couple of Clifton Taylor TD runs, the second one with only 30 seconds remaining in the game.
Final score: Chicago 14, St. Louis 13.
Illini Birthdays
Saturday:Kennedy Cattenhead, basketball
Sunday:Luke Goode, basketball (23)
Monday:Levi Cobb, basketball (68)
Tuesday:Jesse Delgado, wrestling (33)
Wednesday:Cari Bohm volleyball
Thursday:RJ Jones III, football (19)
Friday:Perdita Felicien, track & field