North Alabama Makes Rare Appearance At the Ballpark
The North Alabama Lions land in the Rocket City on October 15 poised to add a win to their limited ballpark football record
Last week, the Rocket City Trash Pandas and North Alabama announced the Jacksonville State-North Alabama game would be played at Huntsville’s Toyota Field.
Last week, I went over both the histories of ballpark football for Huntsville and Jacksonville State’s past football games on the diamond. You can read those articles here and here. Unsurprisingly, North Alabama has a more condensed ballpark football history, given that they have only 73 years of history.
The first two ballpark games for the Lions occurred in Hunstville at Joe W. Davis Stadium, as the Lions notched two wins over the Alabama A&M Bulldogs in 1985 and 1987. Both games were defensive struggles, with UNA winning 6-3 in 1985 and 16-14 in 1987.
Six years later, the Lions landed in an iconic ballpark in the Pacific Northwest when they played Portland State at Civic Stadium (now Providence Park). Civic Stadium is without a doubt the most iconic ballpark North Alabama has played in, as it was completed in 1926 and has hosted the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Pacific Coast League Hall of Famer, Ad Liska.
The #2-ranked Vikings blew a 14-0 lead as #3 North Alabama won 44-32 in a “Game of the Century”-esque Division II game. Bill Matos’ 313 passing yards and four touchdowns for Portland State were not enough as Tyrone Rush and Kenyatta Jones both exceeded 100 yards for the Lions.
North Alabama’s next and last appearance to date in a ballpark came against Gulf South Conference rival West Florida. The teams had three meetings in the brief time they were conference rivals, but just one of them was at Pensacola’s Blue Wahoos Stadium, the now-former home of West Florida’s football team.
The only meeting occurred in 2017 when West Florida won 30-7 despite only leading 13-7 at halftime. The Argonauts held North Alabama to 129 yards of offense and nine first downs as Mike Beaudry threw three touchdown passes for the victors.
The Lions’ ballpark history is brief but successful, as they are 3-1 in their four appearances. They hope to continue this brief tradition of success in October against Yellowhammer State rival Jacksonville State.