Kezar Stadium Gets Parties, Wrecking Ball

Kezar Stadium, football home for thousands of high school, college and professional athletes, will have two more celebrations -- and a going-out-of-business sale -- before the wrecking ball flattens it.

Kezar, which was midwife to the birth of the “Alley Oop” pass and the “shotgun” offense, will be destroyed to make way for a $9 million project that will feature a new, smaller field for high school competition.

For nostalgia buffs, souvenirs will be available. A chunk of bench with Kezar burned into it will cost $20. A whole row -- about 10 feet long -- will set you back $100.

“We’ll sell anything anyone wants to make an offer on, if we can,” said Leslie Schemel, executive director of the Friends of Recreation and Park. “The scoreboard is missing all its transformers, or whatever you call them, but maybe someone will buy it as a fixer-upper.”

If everyone who played there since it was built in 1925 shows up for the parties, the place will probably collapse without any help.

The stars who battled at Kezar included Frankie Albert, the legendary Stanford University quarterback who played for and later coached the San Francisco 49ers, who abandoned the stadium in 1971 for Candlestick Park. He was surprised to find out the stadium would be torn down.

“I thought it fell down,” he said.

“We hope to start about mid-April,” Deborah Learner of the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Commission said of the date for destruction. The commission will sponsor a “Farewell to Old Kezar Party” on April 6 and a “Field Day” for anyone who wants to visit the stadium April 8.

Construction on the new stadium will begin in October and will, ironically, result in a structure that resembles the old Kezar.

Initial plans called for taking away only the top and leaving 10,000 seats in the bowl. Now the entire structure will be crushed and removed for construction of new stands, 5,000 on either side between the goal posts.

This, said Learner, will mean a below-ground-level stadium that will resemble the original. A 40,000-seat above-ground-level superstructure was added in 1928.

Alyn Beals played at Kezar as a high school athlete and later as a star in college and the pros.

Beals graduated in 1939 from Poly High School, located right across from the stadium. He then went to Santa Clara University, which played homes games at Kezar, and later played with the 49ers.

“Kezar was great in those days,” he said. “It was the center of attention for everything. Everybody played there, the high schools, the colleges and then the 49ers.”

But the times caught up with the stadium. It was cursed through the years for its rough rail benches, primitive press box and often soggy grass field.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Art Rosenbaum recalled those tight seats.

“A good seat was one in front of a tiny woman,” he wrote. “If a 6-foot-6 guy with long legs sat behind, you knew your rear would ache next day from scapula to lumbar.”

But he also recounted with some affection the pre-television days of the gridiron when it didn’t take pro talent to bring in the crowds.

It was high school rivals Poly and Lowell that were the first to fill all 59,600 seats at the enlarged stadium, Rosenbaum said.

The Santa Clara-St. Mary’s games when Buck Shaw’s Broncos took on Slip Madigan’s Gaels “were sell-outs for many years.”

For others, Kezar will be mostly remembered as the place where the shotgun offense was unveiled in 1960 by 49er coach Howard “Red” Hickey, who simply rotated John Brodie, Bill Kilmer and Bobby Waters at quarterback.

Kezar was also the birthplace of the “Alley Oop” pass from Y.A. Tittle to R.C. Owens, whose leaping ability gave the pass its moniker.

“There will always be nostalgia there for me,” said Owens, whose catches thrilled crowds from 1957 to 1961.

The stadium tunnel, which led from the locker room to the south end zone, became a legend because it was used by both teams. The fans were very close and routinely pelted the visitors with beer and garbage.

“The fans were right on top of you there,” Owens recalled. “They were right in your ear, and you could hear everything they’d say -- some good and some bad.”

Eventually, the fans started bombarding the 49ers and a wire screen was erected.

Things got worse.

The last NFL game at Kezar was played on Jan. 3, 1971 when the Dallas Cowboys beat San Francisco 17-10.