Margaret Sughrue Carlson in front of tributes to Minnesota counties carved in stone at TCF Bank Stadium. PHOTOGRAPH BY MIKE LEE

About once a week, I go up to the sixth floor of the McNamara Alumni Center to enjoy the stunning view of the Gopher football stadium under construction just a block away. Gopher fans have longed to bring football back to campus ever since the team moved to the Metrodome. On September 12, 2009, the Golden Gophers will host the Air Force Academy in the stadium’s inaugural game, and the sounds, sights, and traditions of football will resound across campus for the first time in 28 years.

The open-air, horseshoe-shaped stadium will seat 50,000 fans with the potential to be built out to seat 70,000. It will have one of the biggest scoreboards in the nation and some of the finest premium seating in college football. Beautiful plazas and green spaces will surround TCF Bank Stadium, which will also be the home of the Minnesota Marching Band and the site of convocations, graduations, community events—and the list goes on.

It’s both fitting and exciting that the stadium will pay tribute to all Minnesotans, with the names of each of the 87 state counties etched in stone and mounted around the perimeter. Every Minnesota visitor, from Aitkin to Yellow Medicine, will see that this stadium is their home too.

Just as exciting is the University’s goal to reach out to all 87 counties in the coming year, with leadership provided by the athletics department. The Alumni Association is doing its part by visiting 30 communities in greater Minnesota. We’ll be visiting Rotary, Kiwanis, and other service clubs, and meeting with alumni, public officials, and community and business leaders. We want everyone to catch the stadium buzz and learn how they can be part of “The Ultimate Homecoming.”

The Alumni Association tour continues our long history of stadium advocacy. We raised money to build Memorial Stadium in the 1920s. When Memorial Stadium was demolished, we sold bricks for scholarships and preserved others to rebuild the stadium’s arch in Memorial Hall at the McNamara Alumni Center. And we were the first to go on record saying that Gopher football needed to return to campus in a Gopher-only stadium and the first to contribute $1 million.

To learn more about our state tour, visit www.alumni.umn.edu/statewide_tour. To take a virtual tour of TCF Bank Stadium or to make a gift, go to http://stadium.gophersports.com. Those giving $1,000 or more will receive a personalized commemorative brick that is a replica of the bricks being used in the construction of TCF Bank Stadium and will be recognized on a donor wall in the stadium.

I’m eager to get on the road again because I believe in my core that this stadium is about more than football. It’s about Minnesotans standing up and proclaiming, “This is my state, this is my team, and I’m proud to be a Minnesotan.”