THE PLACE TO PLAY
For more than 70 years, the Pep Bowl has been the place to play
Play for UNO students — as it has for their cohorts across the country — has varied over the years. The limbo and Hula hoops were hot in the ’50s, Frisbees in the ’70s and hacky sacks in the ’80s.
One constant, though, that connects generation after generation of UNO students is where play often takes place on campus — the Pep Bowl.
Just a smidge larger than an acre at 110 yards by 50 yards, the Pep Bowl has served as a sort of Central Park on UNO’s Dodge Campus, an oasis of green bordered by the Eppley Administration Building, Arts & Sciences Hall, Caniglia Field and Allwine Hall.
It’s been a university hallmark for more than 70 years.
Early on it mostly was used for athletics and went by various names — the PE field, intramural field, women’s athletic field and Girls PE field. Aerial pictures of campus from the early 1940s show goal posts in its space, used by the football teams that practiced there.
“During the early years, pre-1960s, it is difficult to imagine students using the area as they do now,” says UNO Archivist Les Valentine, “given the culture, dress codes and, at least very early on, the lack of development of the site.”
The first mention of it in the Gateway as the Pep Bowl was in September 1960 with notice of a homecoming rally being hosted there — by the “Interpep Club.” The club began some time in the late 1940s, and it appears its name eventually was attached to the field.
Homecoming rallies there included lots of play: sack races, bubble-gum blowing, bonfires and royalty crowning. But then students began using the field for other purposes.
They competed to see who was better at obstacle course and human wheelbarrow races, twister, people-pyramid-building, grease-pole climbing, tug of war, or what coed had the shortest miniskirt. In 2011, students tried to break a Guinness World Record for having 250 people on a Slip’n’Slide at once (they fell short). Students also have rolled over the grass in giant hamster balls (Real-life sheep, llamas, mini horses and other animals also have grazed in the Pep Bowl from time to time).
Students began using it for athletics, too: for field hockey, intramural flag and “powder puff” football, softball, volleyball, rugby and soccer. In 1971, the student senate asked the university for permission to flood it to create an ice-skating rink (they said no).
At times, some saw the Pep Bowl not as a place to skate or play but as a possible site for another building. Or for … parking. That was especially so in the car-crowded 1970s, perhaps the peak of parking frustration on campus.
“For many years there have been rumors or fears that UNO would do something with the Pep Bowl,” Valentine says. “Certainly, the popularity of any UNO administrator would be severely diminished by a public suggestion that the Pep Bowl be trashed.”
It has taken some hits, though.
In 1978 it turned into a small lake when a broken steam main flooded it with water. And 40-year-old trees along the west border near the student center had to be removed in 1996 because of root disease. On more than one occasion, scorching summers have turned its expanse various shades of brown.
Typically, though, the Pep Bowl been green and inviting — a great place to catch some wind with a kite, some sun or some shade, or just some ZZZs.
It also has been a great place to enjoy a sack lunch or other bite to eat. The Pep Bowl has hosted picnics and chuck wagon lunches, free meals for students during Welcome Week, and a massive luncheon to celebrate 100 years as a university. It has hosted pudding-sucking and watermelon-eating contests and, one year, National Grilled Cheese Day. Students have hit professors in the face with pies here, rolled pumpkins with their hands and watermelons with their heads.
The Pep Bowl also has been the go-to site for entertainment. It’s where movies have played: “American Graffiti” in 1983; “8 Mile” in 2003; “22 Jump Street” in 2014. Concerts have included the Sorry Muthas Jug Band (1971); all-female Fanny (1973) Son Seals Blues Band (1981), punk polka band The Toos (1982), Jazz Tones (1994) and others. The Royal Lichtenstein Quarter Ring Sidewalk Circus put on a show in 1983. There actors have performed Shakespeare, comedians have cracked wise, and combatants dressed in Medieval and Renaissance garb have clashed in mock fights.
More than once carnival, with rides, were there. Skydivers have landed on the field several times, and more than once hot air balloons were launched from its grassy expanse. Weather balloons, too. In recent years, it’s come alive in a burst of color with the Indian festival Holi.
Students also have had their fun while raising funds in the Pep Bowl: The Zetas and Lambdas held a trampoline bounce marathon to benefit the Easter Seals foundation; The Pikes several times slept in boxes in the Pep Bowl to raise awareness of homelessness and to collect canned food.
It’s also been a place to voice an opinion — or to stand in silence. More than 700 students gathered here in 1970 to protest U.S. action in Cambodia. In 1979 smokers were encouraged to toss their heaters into a giant ash tray in the Pep Bowl during the Great American Smokeout. In 2006, a mock refugee camp was set up to bring attention to World Refugee Day.
More recently, the Pep Bowl has been site of a POW-MIA remembrance and Tribute to the Fallen, thousands of flags lined one after the other honoring service men and women who have lost their lives during military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The somber moments, though, always give way to play, frivolity and fun.
That’s likely to continue as long as UNO exists — and as long as people are looking for a place to play.