Opened 99 years ago in 1926, it was renamed in 1941 after their first football coach, Emory Ratcliffe.

Ratcliffe also hosted the West Coast Relays, a major track and field competition.

Today, local high school football games and various track and field events are still held there.

The football field has a conventional north-south alignment, at an elevation of 300 feet (90 m) above sea level.

On June 2, 1964, Fresno Mayor Wallace D. Henderson marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and 1,000 persons from Fresno High School march Ratcliffe Stadium, where about 3,000 persons attended a rally that he spoke at regarding fair housing, desegregation and the Rumford Housing Act and in protest of California Proposition 14 (1964).