Football games used to be a little rowdier, 1979 business graduate Jeff Albright recalls.
But it wasn’t because of a lower drinking age. Albright said the dorms in Tiger Stadium added to the character and atmosphere of game days.
“There were guys hanging out of windows with no shirt on, drinking beer and hollering at people,” he said.
Albright, who lived on campus all four years of college and was a resident assistant at Kirby-Smith Hall from 1978 to 1979, said like current housing, the Tiger Stadium dorms had respective stereotypes.
“Tiger Stadium was where all the crazy people lived,” he said.
Though off-campus student housing existed at the time, Albright said not many options were available and the prices were often higher than on-campus housing.
“They were old when we were there,” Albright said. He also said off-campus housing wasn’t as nice as today’s options.
After World War II and with the implementation of the GI Bill, which paid for soldiers’ college tuition, the University faced severe housing shortages, University archivist Barry Cowan said. At that time, any student who didn’t live at home or who was under 21 was required to live on campus.
To compensate, the University built dorms like Hodges, Hatcher, Johnson and Laville halls, as well as Power Hall, which no longer exists.
Cowan said Hodges, Hatcher and Johnson, which are all used as offices today, were used as dorms up until the ’90s. He said few students lived there past the ’80s.
The war also allowed the University to acquire “temporary” housing options that ended up more permanent.
Power Hall, which stood where the East Campus Apartments are now, was a set of giant steel-framed buildings, purchased from the Navy, that included assembly instructions.
Married housing on campus was in