In the spring of 1975, the landscape of the Palouse began to change dramatically on the west side of the University of Idaho campus.

The Kibbie Dome began taking shape as giant cranes lifted sections of the barrel arch roof high above the floor of the old football stadium.

Among the interested observers were Ken Schrom, John Yarno and Chris Tormey, who had played in the outdoor stadium and were on the first Vandals football team that played indoors in the newly finished Kibbie Dome in the fall of 1975.

“It was open air my first year there and we were all going, ‘Can they really put a roof on this place? We were all astounded,” said Schrom, who graduated from Grangeville High School before coming to Moscow to play quarterback and pitch on the baseball team.

“I just remember kind of being amazed, honestly, when they started putting the top on it. I didn’t think it was going to work,” Schrom said, recalling how prefabricated sections of the arches were hoisted into place by cranes and then joined together 150 feet above the floor. “You could see it coming from the right and the left. I was thinking, ‘This is a pretty amazing deal if it fits.’ It was like a big jigsaw puzzle.”

The roof structure was completed in just 22 working days.

Schrom remembers walking into the newly completed dome with a teammate. “We just looked at each other and went, ‘Wow, they did it.’ It was pretty impressive.”

Yarno was similarly impressed.

“It’s a huge building in little Moscow, Idaho. A pretty imposing thing on the side of the hill. I enjoyed playing in it. I think I played better at times because of the conditions of the place,” said Yarno, one of the most-decorated football players in Idaho history. 
 

Originally known as the Kibbie-ASUI Activity Center and now called the P1FCU Kibbie Dome, it is celebrating its 50th anniversary this fall.

The first football game played in the Kibbie Dome was a 29-14 loss to Idaho State on Sept. 27, 1975. The dome was dedicated two weeks later during halftime against Boise State, and the Vandals played the only tie in dome history, 31-31, at least until the women’s soccer team tied Boise State 1-1 in 2017.

Besides football, the Kibbie Dome became home to basketball (until the ICCU Arena opened in 2021), soccer, tennis, track and field, concerts, boat and RV shows, rodeos, and, of course, important functions like student registration and graduation.

Tormey was sidelined by a knee injury suffered in the 1974 season finale at Boise State and got to see the new Kibbie Dome from a different perspective.

“I redshirted the ‘75 season, a tough break with my injury, but I was the night watchman in the dome,” Tormey said. “That was my summer job while they were constructing the dome. I remember sleeping a lot. I’d get up every hour and walk around. It was a pretty cake job.

“I think the roof was pretty much all the way in and they were assembling the walls and installing the infrastructure on the inside,” said Tormey, who returned to the field in 1976 and was named All-Big Sky at defensive end.

His initial reaction when it was finished was, “Oh man, just the immensity of it. It was huge. I don’t know what the height is from the highest point to the playing surface, but it was pretty impressive, just the sheer size of it.”

The Vandals finished 4-5-2 overall and 2-2-2 in the Big Sky in 1975. That was about average for that era of Vandals football, but that team would produce three future head coaches (Tormey, Mike Kramer and Dennis Erickson, who was the offensive coordinator). Idaho’s first Associated Press first team All-American (Yarno), a Major League Baseball All-Star (Schrom) and, in perhaps the funnest fact  ever associated with Vandal sports, the guy who remains the voice of Patrick Star in SpongeBob SquarePants (Bill Fagerbakke).
 

Schrom, Yarno and Tormey remember how nice it was for both players and fans to be indoors on cold, wet, nasty autumn Saturdays, and how the Kibbie Dome eventually provided a sweet home-field advantage. 

“When I was recruited it was open air and it was a very different environment,” Yarno said. “It was a lot faster once they covered it, so conditions were perfect. I played in the Kingdome when I played for the Seahawks, so I’m a dome lover.

“I watched it being built and then it became a real thing,” said Yarno, who lives on Lake Coeur d’Alene and has Vandals season tickets. “I think the Kibbie Dome is still a viable stadium. It has a lot going for it. You play football down in the Palouse, if you’re outside, you’re freezing, the wind’s blowing and all that stuff you have to deal with, it’s a lot better to be inside.”

The Kingdome opened a year after the Kibbie Dome and was imploded in 2000 after just 24 years of use.

“I watched that with a tear in my eye,” Yarno said.

Yarno played center and said the speed of the game increased in the Kibbie Dome.

“For me, I could go faster. The footing was perfect. You’re not digging up turf and slipping on wet Astroturf. Your footing was way better. There’s no wind. It’s an arena for football.

“I was very fortunate to get an opportunity down there and make the most of it. It’s ideal conditions for a football game, as opposed to Jerry Kramer playing the Ice Bowl in Green Bay,” Yarno said, referring to the Vandals great and Pro Football Hall of Famer from Sandpoint who threw the lead block for Bart Starr when the Packers beat the Dallas Cowboys in sub-zero temperatures to win the 1967 NFL Championship.

“Fifty years later, it looks better than it did when they first built it. They’ve kept it up, it’s in great shape. It’s still a viable arena,” Yarno said. 

In 1976, Idaho went 7-4 for its first winning record in five years. Yarno was the first interior lineman and first unanimous pick for Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year. As an AP All-American, he appeared on the Bob Hope Christmas Special. Yarno was also picked to play in the East-West Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl. 

His No. 76 was retired the following year. 

(Pre-Internet, the first time many Idaho students learned about Yarno’s fame was by reading the hand-written caption at the base of a large photo of him at the legendary Corner Club).

Tormey, who would return to Idaho first as an assistant coach under Erickson and then as head coach from 1995-99, recalled “just what a great atmosphere” the Kibbie Dome provided. 

“I played in it for two years when it was an uncovered stadium. It was just a totally different environment,” Tormey said. “The crowd noise was a lot more noticeable, a lot louder, and it was a different environment for the opposing team, a domed stadium like that, different lighting, the walls were pretty close to the end zones. So there were just a lot of little nuances that gave us a home-field advantage.”

Erickson was in his second season as offensive coordinator under head coach Ed Troxel in 1975. He returned to Idaho in 1982, starting the golden era of Vandals football that continued on with Keith Gilbertson, John L. Smith and Tormey.

Tormey coached the defensive line in Erickson’s first two seasons as head coach. 

“We packed that dome a number of times,” he said. “The crowd noise was just incredible in there. When Dennis first came to Idaho and we were rolling it up, that was 1982, we hadn’t had that success around Moscow for a long time and boy the people were just ecstatic about it. It was just an electric atmosphere in the dome. It was that way a little bit when I was there, but I think it was that way for a lot of years, from Dennis to Gilby to John L. to me. We had a lot of success in there.”

By the time he returned as head coach, “I became pretty familiar with the place,” Tormey said. “It just really felt like home. We had tremendous support from the fans.”

Erickson has similar memories.

“The biggest thing I remember is when that thing was full, you could hardly hear,” Erickson said. “It took us a while to get it filled, but it was just unusual for what was going on at that time. It was really fun to play and coach in it.

“In ‘75, it was something special. It still is.”

Erickson returned seven years later in his first of two stints as Idaho’s head coach. That started a run of 11 Division I-AA playoff appearances in 14 seasons, plus five Big Sky Conference championships.

“I knew we could be good just because of the stadium and doing the right things recruiting-wise, the Northwest. That was as much fun as I’ve ever had coaching that ‘82-’83-’84-’85 stretch,” Erickson said. “I tell you what, you get those students in there, we were pretty good in those days. You could hardly hear. It was rocking.

“A lot of people would like to have one just like it today,” Erickson said. 

Erickson also lives on Lake Coeur d’Alene and said he makes it to one or two games a year.

“I like to go down and visit the Corner Club,” he said. “That’ll never change.”

There were a few drawbacks. 

“It was a shame that we didn’t have a locker room when I was there,” Schrom said. “We dressed in the old Memorial Gym where the locker rooms were and had to make the trek over. Overall, it was a great facility. I’m glad we had it.”

The other was the playing surface. 

“Back in those days there was an asphalt floor and we had a Tartan field that rolled up on a drum that they stored on the west end of the stadium. It was a little bit like playing on a highway,” Tormey said.. You’d get terrible burns from it and people got infections. It was pretty bad.”

Of course, rolling up the turf after football season ended is what made the Kibbie Dome truly a multipurpose arena. The turf now is removed section by section to allow for other uses.

Schrom also enjoyed a different perspective of the Kibbie Dome. 

After football season ended and the turf was rolled up, the baseball team escaped the harsh Moscow winters by working out in the warm dome, taking batting practice behind huge screens suspended from the ceiling and throwing off portable mounds.

“It worked out real well,” said Schrom.

So well that he was drafted by the California Angels in the 17th round in 1976. He intended to resume his football career after his first season of rookie ball, but was told by the Angels, “If you so much as break a fingernail, you’re not coming to spring training.”

Schrom said he threw to wide receivers at practice that fall and at one point Troxel implored him: “Ken, you gotta play. You throw the ball better than anybody we’ve got.”

“It was a tough decision, it turned out,” Schrom said from his home near Fort Worth, Texas.

Schrom made his Major League debut in 1980 with the Toronto Blue Jays and was named to the American League All-Star Team with Cleveland in 1986, when he finished 14-7 with a 4.54 ERA. Overall, he was 51-51 with a 4.81 ERA in seven seasons with three clubs.

Fagerbakke was a 17-year-old freshman defensive end in 1975 out of Minico High in Rupert.

He didn’t play much as a freshman and one of his top memories was when they finally let the team practice in the dome that fall. 

“We didn’t get to practice in there until it was November and it got really nasty outside,” Fagerbakke said. “Someone talked to someone, and they said, ‘OK, we’re going to get to practice in the dome.’ I remember walking into the dome when it was just so nasty out and it was so awesome. By the second year we were obviously practicing in there quite a bit. 

“Ironically, I’d already played in a dome in high school, the Minidome in Pocatello,” he said. “Idaho, I will remind you, is the first state in the union with two domed football stadiums, So I’d already played in a dome and understood the vibe and the weird lighting and all that stuff of the controlled environment. And the Mindome was worse than the Kibbie Dome in terms of playing surface. It felt like it was just a carpet on cement whereas the Kibbie Dome had a nice cushion under the rug.”

Fagerbakke’s career ended after he blew out a knee during spring ball of his sophomore year. 

The previous fall, he played in the Battle of the Palouse at Washington State, against Jack “The Throwin’ Samoan” Thompson. 

“I think I had a half sack against Jack Thompson, so that was probably my college football peak,” he said. 

Fagerbakke graduated with a bachelor’s degree in theater in 1981 and later attended grad school at SMU.

He played graduate assistant Michael "Dauber" Dybinski on the sitcom “Coach” from 1989-1997. He’s been the voice of Patrick Star since SpongeBob SquarePants debuted in 1999, as well as the Patrick Star Show spinoff that debuted in 2021.

Fagerbakke said being on the first team that played in the Kibbie Dome “was a happy accident. I was just trying to get through every day, trying to figure out life.”

Bernie Wilson grew up in Coeur d'Alene, went to North Idaho College and then transferred to the University of Idaho, graduating in 1980. After working for the Daily Idahonian in Moscow for three years, he started a 40-plus year career covering sports for The Associated Press, working in Spokane, Los Angeles and San Diego. He retired in January but continues to write for various publications.