DULUTH — It was a night of legends before Duluth Denfeld’s game against Grand Rapids Friday.
They gathered for a ceremony rechristening what was once Public Schools Stadium. Now the stadium will be named Marv Heikkinen Field at Walt Hunting Stadium after the school’s two greatest football coaches.
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Hunting's grandsons and Heikkinen were on hand — along with a number of Denfeld standouts from years past — to celebrate a new, more Denfeld-specific name. When Heikkinen was introduced by Denfeld principal Tom Tusken, Tusken called Heikkinen “the greatest educator I’ve known.”
The mood became even more jubilant when the Hunters upset Grand Rapids 24-21 after the dedication ceremony. Taye Manns had 188 yards rushing on two touchdowns, including a 76-yarder. He also returned a kickoff for a score in the Hunters' win.
For most of its more than 90-year history, Public Schools Stadium was as descriptive a name as possible for the venue that hosted football games for Denfeld, Morgan Park, Central and even East high schools.
Before Minnesota Duluth moved into its current home at Malosky Stadium, the Bulldogs also called PSS home.
St. Scholastica still plays its home games there, as does the Duluth FC soccer team, but as Morgan Park and Central closed their doors, and East got a stadium on its side of town the name was changed to “Public Schools Stadium.”
Tim Doyle, with the Denfeld Alumni Association and the stadium naming committee, said work started to rename the stadium several years ago and was thwarted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but gained momentum again about a year ago. While the updated name was functionally descriptive, Doyle and Joe Vukelich, a retired teacher and Denfeld historian, wanted something that reflected the venue's legacy.
“We wanted to make sure that we definitely had Denfeld in the naming,” Doyle said. “99.9% of people have been gracious as far as the renaming, but it was quite a process. We had to make sure we were aligned with district policies and procedures for renaming and naming.”
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In meetings with Denfeld principal Tom Tusken, athletic director Tom Pearson and the stadium naming committee, it was pretty clear who most were leaning toward — men that honor the Denfeld pillars of “Integrity, Honor and Tradition.”
“Interestingly, we all came up with the same names,” Doyle said. “It was almost like the Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson of the Denfeld stadium — we didn’t have to really dig deeper.”
The suggestions were legendary Denfeld football coaches Heikkinen and Hunting.
Heikkinen coached the Hunters from 1971-83 and was a social studies teacher at Denfeld.
It may be a little long for some, but the committee wanted to honor both the Hunter legends.
Doyle noted that while Marv Heikkinen Field at Walt Hunting Stadium is a mouthful, Hermantown plays on Corey Veech Field at Centricity Credit Union Stadium and even UMD plays on Griggs Field at James S. Malosky Stadium.
More importantly, the new name honors two men that were influential on football at Denfeld and the school itself.
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“Marv Heikkinen is one of the very few people who could have made it in the Denfeld Hall of Fame strictly as a coach or strictly as a teacher,” Vukelich said. “If he’d never coached one football game, he would be in the Denfeld Hall of Fame for his teaching abilities. He created two courses in his head — civil and criminal law and international studies — that are still taught at Denfeld today.”
Hunting, however, is part of the DNA at Denfeld. Hunting started the program in 1927 — three years before the stadium that now bears his name opened — and was even the source of the Denfeld mascot: the Hunters.
“The football team was clobbering people back when Walt Hunting was coaching,” Doyle said. “There was not a mascot for the first several years. It came to be where the students would go up to the top of the stands at the old PSS and they’d yell, ‘Here come Hunting’s Hunters,’ and it stuck.”
What’s more, both were extremely successful coaches. In 106 years of football at Denfeld, according to Vukelich, there have been 24 undefeated or one-loss seasons. Hunting was coach for 13 of those seasons and Heikkinen guided the Hunters in four of them.
“Every three years, Marv Heikkinen had an undefeated or a one-loss team and Walt Hunting did it every other year,” Vukelich said. “In 64 years, every other coach had seven, so one out of every nine years.”
Heikkinen also guided the Hunters to their only appearances in the state playoffs, in 1979 and again in 1982.
‘A neighborhood stadium’
Wins haven’t come as frequently in the past 25 years as they did for Heikkinen and Hunting, but the atmosphere at PSS was unbelievable, according to current coach Erik Lofald.
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Lofald’s mother, Jill Lofald, taught at Denfeld beginning in 1987, when Lofald was 8 years old. He grew up “running the halls,” going to basketball and watching football at PSS.
“I remember Friday nights at PSS with my mom and dad and just how vivid the lights were,” Lofald said. “The band playing, the cheerleaders — just the sound of football was exhilarating.”
In the late 1980s, PSS typically hosted two games on Friday nights because of all the different schools using the facility. The late game typically started at 8 p.m., with the lights illuminating the surrounding neighborhood and residents started to fill the hill behind the end zone to watch the Hunters, or whoever happened to be playing.
“It’s a neighborhood stadium,” Lofald said. “It’s really cool in that way where you’re surrounded by houses and Sixth Street on top. Those houses have become almost iconic to some of us who have been around this long.”
Pillars of Honor
In addition to the name change, the stadium committee also worked to create a Pillar of Honor for Denfeld athletes that competed at PSS in the past.
Denfeld football players honored included Wally Gilbert, who played for the Duluth Eskimos in the 1920s and also played major league baseball, as well as current Vikings captain C.J. Ham and a bevy of players from Hunting and Heikkinen’s era.
Football isn’t the only sport played on these grounds, and the pillar also honors those that played other sports.
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Denfeld boys soccer coach Scott Anderson has been on the Hunters sidelines for 29 years.
“There was no high school soccer in my day,” Anderson said. “We had recreational soccer and I was on one of the first teams back in the 80s that got to play at Public Schools Stadium when I was 15 or 16.”
While many of Anderson’s former players — like Jake Lammi, Dan Westholm and Keegan Chastey — are on the pillar, Anderson immediately thought of one of the first Denfeld soccer greats: Brian Melde.
“I never actually coached him, but he was on the first Denfeld varsity teams and I played against him in the Youth League,” Anderson said. “He was a few years younger than us, but everybody knew who Brian Melde was.”
Current Denfeld girls soccer coach Leah Hamm is also included on the Pillar as are current girls soccer players Alyssa Doyle and Cayley Larson. The trio helped the Hunters earn their first winning season since 2014 and this year they hope to knock off four-time defending section champion Cloquet-Carlton for a spot in the state tournament.
Track and field is also represented with names like 1999 graduate Brent Loberg and 2011 graduate Paige Stratioti.
During the ceremony, Vukelich said there are plans to add pillars honoring Morgan Park and Central athletes that competed at the stadium.
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