Dick Hamblin

If you’ve had the opportunity to watch a Madison High School football game, you’ll notice the scoreboard, the field, and the press box all bear the name ‘Dick Hamblin Field’.  Richard Alan Hamblin – Dick, or ‘Dink’ to his friends, grew up in Madison on Dayton Road, and was a 1966 graduate of Madison Memorial High School in Madison village.  In high school, Dick started at left tackle on the Varsity football team, and was a two-time state qualifier in wrestling at 185/HVY weight class.  He was well regarded by classmates and teaching and coaching staff.  After graduation in 1966, Dick enlisted in the Marines on October 10, at the Cleveland Recruiting Office. 

When Dick arrived in Vietnam he was assigned to Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division as a PFC Rifleman. On September 21, 1967 the battalion was participating in Operation Kingfisher, when Fox Company encountered a large hostile force ambush, 3 kilometers east of Con Thien (Hill 158). He was Killed in Action in that battle, and was the first Madison resident to die in Vietnam.  Shortly after his death, the Madison Memorial High School football stadium on East Main Street in the village was renamed ‘Dick Hamblin Field’.  The field continued to host Madison Varsity athletic events until the fall of 1994, when the Madison High School Blue Streak Stadium was dedicated behind the ‘new’ High School on Burns Road.  Dick Hamblin Field continued to serve Madison for community league sports for a number of years.  In 2012, both Madison Memorial High School and Dick Hamblin Field were demolished for the construction of the new South Elementary School. 

After the demolition of the old stadium, local veterans and citizens started the discussion on how to honor the memory of Dick Hamblin, and keep his legacy alive.  A group called The Hamblin Committee, made up of veterans from VFW Post 8548 and the Jay Wilson Post 112 of the American Legion, and spearheaded by Mike Evangelista, began working to get Dick Hamblin’s name on Blue Streak Stadium. 

The group worked with the Madison School Board and Administration, Village and Township leaders, and worked tirelessly to raise the roughly $9,000 needed.  With those funds, signs were placed memorializing Dick Hamblin Field on the scoreboard, by the entrance gate and on the back of the press box. In addition, two plaques were added to the two monuments at Memorial Stadium with the names of the Madison residents who were killed in action during the Vietnam and Korean Wars.

The dedication/rededication of Dick Hamblin Field was held on August 28, 2015.  Schools Superintendent Angela Smith was among the speakers, saying “I think it’s a huge sense of community and pride that our veterans came forward, raised the funds throughout the community, and a lot of different people have helped make this a reality,” Smith said.  Many of Hamblin’s classmates, who gathered earlier in the day at the American Legion, were also on hand as the Black Sheep Bagpiper Band played and two jets flew overhead.  Beyond the ceremony, it was the teaching moment in it that the veterans and school administration wanted the evening to accomplish.

“The satisfaction was 100% to see the people understand and embrace the moment,” Mike Evangelista said. “The veterans wanted the children mostly to understand why we did this. They are the future leaders. Dick gave up his tomorrow. It is our job as veterans to see his memory go on.” 

For Jim Hamblin, Dick’s older brother who thanked everyone during the ceremony, it was a moving night.  “It’s unreal,” he said afterwards. “I felt so bad when they tore the old field down. But when I got word they were going to do this down here…”  “What is really funny is I keep telling myself he is coming home. We grew up in that house right over there on the corner of Dayton Rd. (he pointed to the south end of the football stadium), maybe 2000 feet away from here. So Dick’s finally home.”