The first football game played was on Friday, October 3, 1936, when the Arizona State Teacher's College Bulldogs defeated California Institute of Technology 26–0.

Designed by influential Phoenix architects Lescher & Mahoney (with Kemper Goodwin as one of the project's superintendents), it cost $87,500 to build and seated an additional 5,300.

On June 3, 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an address at Goodwin Stadium, titled "Religious Witness for Human Dignity".

The address was not noted in many biographies of King and was only found in 2013, when a woman discovered it along with reels from civil rights leader Lincoln Ragsdale's radio show at a Goodwill store.

A plaque placed on the northwest corner of the parking garage, at College Avenue and Lemon Street, commemorates Goodwin Stadium's existence.