By Rachel Knight
Photo courtesy of Cushing Library
Kyle Field has roots that run much deeper than the grass the Aggie football team plays on today. The stadium seats more than 100,000 people now, but originally seated 500 on wooden bleachers paid for and built by the facility’s namesake with the help of a few students.
The “Home of the 12th Man” was originally home to more sports than just football. Today, the facility serves as a gathering place for Aggies from across the globe and towers over campus as an emblem of the University’s culture, traditions, and core values.
Before Kyle Field was built in 1905, all home football games were played on the drill fields at the military school, according to a pamphlet titled The Contribution of Edwin Jackson Kyle to the Development of the Athletic Program at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.
“As there were no seats, people stood or sat in buggies,” the pamphlet reads. “The ‘hat was passed’ during the games and people gave what they pleased. This resulted of course in meager financial support of athletics. The lack of finances made it difficult to equip teams properly, to secure coaches, and to schedule games with the best colleges. These limitations naturally had an unfavorable effect on the student body.”
Edwin Jackson Kyle saw great potential in athletics, despite the fact that this was an uncommon opinion among the faculty. He first came to Texas A&M as a sophomore in 1896, two years after the first Aggie football team was drafted. As a student, Kyle was a ranking senior military officer, president of his class, president of the Y.M.C.A., and valedictorian his senior year. He is the only student to ever serve as Commandant while still a student. He graduated from Texas A&M in 1899, and then obtained two more degrees from Cornell University. He returned to Texas A&M as an instructor in horticulture in 1902.
Kyle was assigned a large amount of land on campus for his horticulture research, according to the pamphlet. He didn’t need all of the land for his crops, so he used barbed wire to fence off a portion to build an athletics facility.
Photo courtesy of Cushing Library
Realizing a barbed wire fence was not satisfactory, Kyle purchased lumber and posts for fencing the field on an open account from G.S. Parker of Bryan. When the fence was complete, it was time to tackle the task of adding seating to the facility. Kyle purchased lumber to build two bleachers with a seating capacity of 500. Once the athletic field was fenced and bleachers were erected, work began to get the grounds in shape. The first game played on the field was a baseball game. As the only athletic facility on campus, Kyle Field originally served as a football field, baseball field, and track facility. The field was christened by the student body the year after it was built in the chapel on campus after the football team beat Baylor 17 to 5 in the first game they played at Kyle Field.
In addition to building Kyle Field, Kyle is responsible for bringing the highly anticipated Texas A&M vs. t.u. (Aggies’ name for the University of Texas) game to College Station. After the 1908 game played on Thanksgiving, Kyle told t.u. authorities that Texas A&M would not play again in Austin until they agreed to play every other year in College Station. The final compromise resulted in the 1909 Thanksgiving game being played in Austin and the 1910 and 1911 Thanksgiving games being played in Houston, with subsequent annual Thanksgiving games being played in College Station and Austin on alternate years.
Once the deal was made, Kyle purchased covered grandstands from the Bryan Fair Association, using his personal funds. Luckily, the two t.u. games played in 1909 earned Texas A&M $2,500 each. In the pamphlet, Otto Eversburt, student manager, says this income allowed the athletics department to pay off their outstanding debts, and relieved Kyle of personal responsibility on notes for the first time in several years.
The college’s yearbook reported the facilities growth with great pride in 1911. “In Kyle Field we have one of the largest and one of the best equipped Athletic Fields in the South,” the yearbook says. “It is 600 ft. in width, 750 ft. in length, and contains a large grandstand, and two sections of bleachers, capable of seating several thousand people; contains a quarter mile cinder track and an excellent 200-yard straightway. Underneath the grandstand are dressing rooms equipped with hot and cold showers, individual lockers, electric lights, rubbing boards, and all conveniences.”
In 1927, the first section of the first concrete stadium at Kyle Field was built for $76,718.84 under the businesses management of James Sullivan. The second section was built in 1929 for $259,639.68. This brought Kyle Field’s seating capacity to 37,909 with 32,909 permanent seats and an additional 5,000 temporary seats, says Alan Cannon, associate athletics director at Texas A&M Athletics.
Kyle resigned from the athletic council in 1934, but returned in 1937 after being asked to do so once by the student body and twice by the university president, according to the pamphlet. Athletic conditions where bad again. Coach Norton, who was hired after coach Bell was fired in 1933, had not produced a single winning team. The students were revolting against the coaching staff, and in Kyle’s words, the former students were worse.
The pamphlet says the team and students wanted to fire Norton, but the school could not afford to break his written contract that had one more year remaining. They decided to keep Norton, who was excellent at calling plays, but lacked the ability to inspire his players. Kyle filled this gap by becoming the football team’s motivational speaker before every game and during every half time.
The 1939-1940 team went on to have an extraordinary season. They defeated t.u. on Thanksgiving, and won the Sugar Bowl. As the pamphlet says, “A&M had come in one season from a highly demoralized squad to the number one Team of the Nation!”
Kyle turned in his final resignation from the Athletics Council in 1944. Joe Utay, captain of the football team in 1907 and director of athletics in 1912, wrote Kyle on Dec. 8, 1951. “May I say that it is a well stablished (sic.) fact that since the turn of the century you have played an important part in whatever successes A&M has had in athletics and particularly football and that by your conduct you dedicated yourself to do those things which will help preserve the Institution as a constructive force in the lives of the future youths of Texas,” his letter says.
More success called for more stadium growth. In 1954, a small press box and a section of the second deck was added to the west side of the facility. In 1956, the Texas A&M Board of Directors officially named Kyle Field after Edwin Jackson Kyle, according to Cannon.
Kyle Field continued to grow in 1967. Second decks were added to each side of the stadium, which brought the total capacity to 48,000, and a record crowd of 56,679 fans attended the 1975 t.u. game played at Kyle Field. Fans sat on the track that surrounded the field and rushed it at the conclusion of the 20 to 10 Aggie victory, Cannon says.
Astroturf was installed at Kyle Field, and the first artificial turf game at the venue was played against Wichita State to open the 1970 season, Cannon shares. Kyle Field returned to being a natural grass field in 1996.
Cannon says he believes coach Sherrill narrowed the seats in Kyle Field on the student side in 1982, which brought the capacity to 72,387; however, in 1992 the capacity was listed as just 70,210.
In 1998, Kyle Field’s capacity dropped again to 58,292, because Kyle Field — The Zone was under construction that season, Cannon explains. The record crowd was still well over the listed capacity that year with a total count of 62,873 fans in the stadium during the Texas Tech game. When Kyle Field — The Zone was completed in 1999, it brought the stadium’s capacity up to 82,600.
Photo courtesy of Sam Craft, Texas A&M Athletics
Visions for Kyle Field’s current form started becoming a reality in 2013 when the Texas A&M Board of Regents approved the $485 million redevelopment of Kyle Field, according to Cannon. The project took two seasons to complete. The first phase was completed in 2014. The largest crowd in Kyle Field’s history was recorded that season with 110,633 fans attending the Ole Miss game. At the completion of the renovation, Kyle Field’s capacity was back down to 102,733, but in 2016 the stadium managed to hold 106,248 fans for the Tennessee game.
The Hall of Champions at Kyle Field, located on the first floor of the west side of the stadium, houses a large display about all of the renovations Kyle Field has undergone. Chancellor Sharp is quoted in the display’s section about the most recent renovation.
“For all Aggies — past, present, and future — Kyle Field embodies our culture, our traditions, and our core values,” he says. “To the rest of the world, Kyle Field projects a message not just about football, but about the overall excellence of our great university. Kyle Field is ‘home’ to generations of Aggies and to the spirit of Aggieland, and it always will be.”
