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Before the College had an athletic field, it had used the Quad as its playing fields. The students had carefully marked out a baseball diamond, football field, tennis court, and 2 tracks. Never adequate for this founding member of the MIAA (Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association), the College officially opened Winter-Lau Field on October 6, 1900 to a successful shutout of the Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) football team - 146 to 40! In 1902, a baseball field, a track and covered grandstand were added to the new "official" home of Albion athletics.

In 1914, the fence that originally enclosed the north and west sides of the field stood rotten and worse-for-wear. As a result, it was decided that a concrete wall would be built around it, in partitions that would be added as funding became available. In 1918, the covered grandstand burned. And finally in 1919, the wall completed, the Class of 1914 dedicated an "artistic" entrance to the facility, complete with swinging wrought iron gates. As the wall had been built, the college had been expanding the field to move the gridiron closer to the Kalamazoo River. So as the wrought iron gates swung open and the first game of the 1919 football season commenced, a new field was dedicated — Winter-Lau was renamed Alumni Field, or "A"-Field.

In 1930, lights were added to the gridiron. In the 1940s, the grandstand was at the south end of the field, opposite of its present day location. The 1960s found the women's field hockey team playing on A-Field rather than on the Kresge green, while soccer was added to the facilities in 1967. In 1970, a baseball field was finally erected on campus rather than in various locations around Albion City. During the 1999-2000 school year, Alumni Field was renovated in order to serve as a better practice and game facility.  As a final step, A-Field was renamed Dempsey Field, in honor of Albion alumni and members of the Albion College Athletic Hall of Fame, June and Cedric Dempsey.  The Dempseys were primary donors to the project, along with Barbara Hill Meyer, '50, also a member of the Athletic Hall of Fame and longtime contributor to Albion College.

In 1996, the bricks to the entrance of A-Field were changed to include those with names of 1960s alumni donors on them.  For any contribution of $500 or more, payable over a period of five years, bricks were inscribed with the name of the donor or of an individual the donor wished to honor.

In 2002, the football field at Sprankle-Sprandel Stadium was renamed Morley Fraser Field in honor of the 80^th birthday celebration of the beloved Albion coach. In Fraser's 15 seasons as head football coach, the Britons won five MIAA titles.  He died in June of 2004 after a battle with cancer.