[3] The original stadium included permanent stands on the south side, a press box, and a lighting system.

[4] Ficklen Memorial Stadium opened on September 21, 1963 with a win against Wake Forest.

[3] The north side permanent seating was constructed in 1967 and 1968, increasing the capacity of the stadium to 20,000.

The press box, which had space for 92 writers and an entire floor for electronic media, was in use until 2018 when it was replaced by the much larger Townbank Tower.

Lastly, scoreboard with a lightbank message center was placed on the east end of the stadium.

A new drainage system, new base of gravel and sand, new treated topsoil, and a new grass—Tifton 419 Hybrid Bermuda were all installed.

[3] Ronald and Mary Ellen Dowdy of Orlando, Florida, donated $1 million during a fund-raising drive in 1994.

[3] Three years later, Al and Debbie Bagwell of Lake Gaston, Virginia donated to the East Carolina Educational Foundation.

[4] During the expansion of the upper deck and club level, the press box received improvements.

The 52,475-square-foot (4,875.1 m2) strength and conditioning, banquet rooms, sport memorabilia, and an academic enhancement center building was named for Pete and Lynn Murphy of Rose Hill.

The expansion included removing the scoreboard located in the east end zone.

Lastly, another scoreboard was built on the west end zone in front of the Murphy Center.

[7][8] In May 2016, East Carolina revealed a $60 million renovation project for Dowdy–Ficklen Stadium, which is a portion of its athletic facilities master plan.

[12] On November 14, 1970, the visiting Marshall University Thundering Herd lost a game 17-14 to the Pirates at Ficklen Stadium, which ended with Marshall quarterback Ted Shoebridge controversially being called for intentional grounding on the last play of the game.

Later that evening, while on approach to Huntington Tri-State Airport, the Marshall football team's plane, which had been chartered to transport the Thundering Herd to and from Greenville, crashed, killing all 75 people on board.