Before adopting its current name as University of Northern Iowa, the school was known as Iowa State Teachers College and briefly—as in this 1960s photo—as State College of Iowa, or SCI. Photos courtesy of University Archives, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa.
Sept/Oct 2025 (Volume 17, Issue 5)
By Tim Harwood
The 1975 University of Northern Iowa football season began outdoors. Optimistic fans and players hoped to finish it inside the UNI-Dome. Construction had started the previous autumn, with a one-year completion target. The optimism was waning by the late weeks of the schedule, and November storms were another damaging setback. The inclement month also soon produced one of the most infamous games in program history: a playoff contest which was immediately dubbed the Mud Bowl.
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, dripping, chilled participants and spectators at O.R. Latham Stadium couldn’t help but glance a few hundred yards to the west. Just across Hudson Road, work continued—even during the holiday weekend—on the nearly-completed indoor venue. Under the circumstances, there was little nostalgia as the Panthers trudged away from their old home field for the last time.
A facility like the UNI-Dome would have been unimaginable when football first arrived at the Iowa State Normal School. Even Latham Stadium would have seemed far-fetched as the college’s young men played on the campus’ open fields 80 years earlier. The first intercollegiate games in the program record book date to 1895: a win against Coe and losses to Upper Iowa and now-defunct Lennox.
The team’s early years included a few games magnified by the passage of time and the development of the sport in the next century. In November 1898, a battered University of Iowa team visited. As the student reporters in Iowa City noted, “… scrubs cannot be developed into Varsity players in the twinkling of an eye,” and the “Normalites” won 11-5. The Hawkeyes haven’t visited Cedar Falls since, and UNI hasn’t won again in 17 subsequent rematches.
A season later, the Normal School played Iowa State to a scoreless draw. In 1900, they went to Ames and added to the Cyclones’ “chronicle of defeats and disappointments” by claiming a 5-0 win. It took more than 90 years to earn another victory in the series.
Head Coach Stan Sheriff (front, center) pictured with members of the 1975 football team, including Bill Salmon (No. 12), Mike Timmermans (No. 77), and Dave Schooley (No. 82).
The early 20th century brought a name change to Iowa State Teachers College but limited football development. From 1900 to 1920, the school had nine head coaches. The schedule was filled out with high school teams as late as 1912. The roster of opponents also included Lennox, Leander Clark, Parsons, and others which have vanished from the landscape.
In 1921, two key figures accepted ISTC football coaching jobs. L.L. Mendenhall was named head coach in May, and Paul Bender was hired as his assistant in August. Both had attended the University of Iowa, and both had served during World War I: Mendenhall instructed future pilots at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, while Bender brought soldiers into top condition at Camp Gordon in Georgia. Mendenhall and Bender were still on campus into the 1960s as athletics director and dean of students respectively.
Their teams went 40-20-8 through 1929 and were particularly strong once Bender became head coach in 1925. The decade was highlighted by the program’s 7-0-1 campaign in 1927. After a season-opening 6-6 tie against St. Thomas, the squad won the remainder of their games, holding opponents to seven points or fewer in each matchup and claiming the Iowa Conference championship. The backfield included a pair of star wrestlers: Dave McCuskey and Pete Grochowski. McCuskey would become better known for coaching wrestling teams at ISTC and later the University of Iowa.
The years ahead included a new stadium, a new nickname, and a new conference. During the opening weekend of October 1928, the squad stepped onto a fresh field in front of a large wooden grandstand. The first contest on the site of what became Latham Stadium may have been memorable for the anticipation and the festivities, but not the result. McCuskey was injured in the second half and Coe rolled to a 32-0 win. In 1931, campus teams became the Panthers at the suggestion of center Burl Berry, who would go on to win not only the naming contest sponsored by the student newspaper but also the football MVP award. The winter of 1934 brought a slow transition to the North Central Conference, precipitating longstanding rivalries with the same Dakota schools the Panthers still meet regularly today in the Missouri Valley Football Conference.
Two whirlwinds blew into Cedar Falls in 1936. In July, a literal storm did damage throughout northeast Iowa. The amenities surrounding the Panthers’ field were flattened, with some debris thrown across campus. The basic components of a new and more durable stadium were ready in less than three months. Four years later, the facility was dedicated in memory of the university’s President O.R. Latham, who died unexpectedly in the summer of 1940 and “… held the affectionate title of ‘No. 1 Panther fan,’ earned at his unfailing attendance at all home contests …” according to his successor, Dr. Malcolm Price.
The other force of nature arriving in 1936 was new 35-year-old head coach Clyde “Buck” Starbeck. A former center for South Dakota State, Starbeck had coached linemen at North Dakota for eight years before his first head coaching opportunity. He would lead ISTC for 20 seasons, winning 95 games and eight conference championships. The Panthers were the dominant team in the NCC during the 1940s.
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