Non-football related memories of Taylor Field

My enduring memories of Taylor Field, oddly enough, are not of football. Maybe that’s because the Saskatchewan Roughrider teams that resided there so often were lousy.

Since football first was played at the site in 1910, Taylor Field has mostly hosted defeat and disappointment. It was not winning football that kept the fans coming back for 106 years.

I grew up in Regina with parents who had season tickets for more than 50 years, Section 40, Row 10, Seats 6, 7 and 8. With their third ticket they usually they took one kid to the game, often me. Everyone in the section knew each other, like neighbours. One time, probably with the Riders way behind, I was fooling around with a mustard packet and squirted yellow mustard all over the back of a guy in front of us. He was a great, big guy named Charlie, a farmer, I seem to recall. He graciously laughed it off and never spoke of it again. You would not find a more civilized jurisdiction in the world than Section 40 at Taylor Field.

Another Taylor Field highlight was an unexpected, low-level flyover during the anthem. Nothing jacks up the crowd like a flyover. We’d seen the Snowbirds. We’d seen CF-18 jet fighters. We’d seen Harvard turboprop trainers out of Moose Jaw. This time, it was nine Canada geese flying in perfect V formation, barely high enough to clear the goalposts and honking loud enough to be heard over O Canada. Those geese drew as big a cheer as the Snowbirds ever did.

Of luxury at Taylor Field, there was none. The whole stadium was bleacher seating, with newer benches made of aluminum that in October sucked every last joule of heat out of your body through your ass.

Halftime lineups for the dungeon-like bathrooms were so long that, when you finally got back to your seat, it was time to be filing for the exits. Burnt-out light bulbs in the primitive scoreboard didn’t get changed. Unless the number ended in a one or a seven, you couldn’t tell how many points the visiting team had.

I covered the Riders for a couple of depressing seasons in the early 1980s as a StarPhoenix sports writer. After both those seasons, the head coach and general manager were fired, which tells you how terrible the teams were. Players, coaches and management were badly out of their depth. Home attendance was dangerously low and those who did come wondered why. Their groans still echo off the bare concrete. Even so, my prevailing memory from that time is not of the ineptitude or disarray, but rather of the extraordinary grace under pressure shown by then-quarterback Joe Paopao. A beautiful man, when he wasn’t running for his life.

Halftime shows in those days were charmingly amateurish. They once had a Labrador hunting dog retrieving duck dummies, something you’d expect to see in the neighbourhood park, not at a professional football halftime show. To demonstrate the so-called blind retrieve, a dummy was hidden without the dog looking. As it frantically sniffed around the open field, unable to find the thing, someone in the crowd, in a loud, fake whisper, offered a hint: “It’s behind the goalpost.”

When the Riders were bad, fans at Taylor Field had to entertain themselves. Once during a game an announcement came over the PA system welcoming Willie Shoemaker, the world famous jockey. While everyone was looking around for the diminutive Shoemaker, a big fat guy in the next section stood up and took a bow, as if it was him. He got a big ovation, too.

The Rolling Stones, of course, were a triumph at Taylor Field. It was like they were performing in my backyard.

My favourite Taylor Field memory, however, is of a cardboard box. This was at a Labour Day game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, when Miss Roughrider traditionally was crowned at halftime. Each of the contestants received a red rose taken from a box. When the game resumed, someone forgot to take the box away and it blew out into the middle of the field. The Riders then were losing, badly, mired in their own end, and probably out of the playoffs, so a box on the field was a welcome distraction. Propelled by the typically gusty wind, the box now was advancing in fits and starts towards Winnipeg’s end zone. Every gain drew a bigger cheer.

It’s at the 20 … the 10 … the 5 … Touchdown!

When the box finally blew across the goal-line, Taylor Field, hilariously, erupted.

Memories that emerge from the new Regina stadium, I suspect, will mostly be of actual football.