When alumni of Bowling Green State University return each year for Homecoming, the event is highlighted by a football game at Doyt Perry Stadium.
Just who was Doyt Perry?
Back in 1931, he was quite literally the most popular student on campus. The Bee Gee News (as the masthead then read) reported that year he and Jane O’Leary won the annual “Popularity Contest” on campus.
The 21-year-old Falcon was the star quarterback of the football team, and also played on the basketball and baseball teams.
After graduating, Perry went on to serve as a football head coach for Upper Arlington and Lorain Clearview high schools. Then he made the jump to college football, serving on the coaching staff of an Ohio State University Buckeyes team that won the Rose Bowl.
Twenty-four years after making news for his popularity, Perry once again made headlines in The BG News: “Former Falcon Grid Star Replaces Whittaker,” reported sportswriter Dick Budd. One of Perry’s first moves as Bowling Green’s new head football coach was hiring a young assistant coach named Bo Schembechler. You may know Schembechler better as the future University of Michigan head coach who battled with Ohio State’s Woody Hayes.
Perry coached the Falcons to seven wins, one loss and one tie in his first season. The BG News reported that Perry used innovative tools — for that time, anyways — to improve his team. One such maneuver involved filming the team playing and bringing players together afterward to watch tapes to uncover errors in play.
Perry went on to coach until 1964. He ended his career with 77 wins, 10 losses and 5 ties, earning five Mid-American Conference Championships. In 1959, the Falcons were named the “National Small College Champions.”
Perry later served as BGSU’s athletic director, a role he held for six seasons. Shortly into his tenure as AD, the school decided to rename a new football stadium in his honor. Doyt Perry Stadium opened in fall 1966.
“At Bowling Green, Doyt Perry is a hero,” The BG News’ Larry Donald wrote before the first game there.
“I think the greatest pleasure I’ve had is watching football grow here,” Perry told Donald. “It took us awhile to get accepted and there were times during those early years when the stadium was nearly empty.”
Asked about the stadium’s name, Perry called it “the greatest honor in all my years of coaching. There just aren’t words my wife, family and I can find to express it.”
An editorial written by The BG News’ editors called the naming a “fitting tribute.” In 1988,
Perry was elected into the National Football Foundation’s College Football Hall of Fame. At that time it was located at Kings Island, Ohio, next to the amusement park. Perry was quoted in The BG News by offering his trademark humility: “I didn’t make it by myself. I had a lot of good players, good coaches and the spirit of the school behind me.”
Toward the end of his life, he returned to his home city to live in the Bowling Green Manor nursing home. He died in 1992 at the age of 82.
Above all, Perry was a firm believer in developing student athletes. His obituary in The BG News noted that of the 56 players on his 1959 championship team, 52 earned their college degrees at BGSU.
One of the most infamous events ever held at Doyt Perry Stadium was the Poe Ditch Music Festival in 1975, which you can read about here.
— By Tyler Buchanan, BG News class of 2013
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