This history of college football stadiums in 4,000 words

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For anyone interested, here's a fun read:




College football first became a major spectator sport in the late 1800s. Its great stadiums started being built early in the 20th century.

Franklin Field in Philadelphia, home to Penn's Quakers, first opened in 1903. Its current structure was not built until 1923 but the University still claims it has the nation's oldest stadium. And it is a treasure. It lacks the beauty or comfort of many parks built just a few years later but it sure is historic and has unique hollow towers in its corners as well as 53,000 seats.

Also in 1903, Harvard Stadium, also known as Soldiers Field, opened as a U-shaped stadium with over 40,000 seats. It was built of cement and still lacks actual seats or bleachers. It also is similar to Rome's Coliseum with a top level of covered seats and stone columns surrounding the top of the stadium.

In 1913 Grant Stadium opened at Georgia Tech, a 5,600 seat wooden venue with seats straight down the sidelines. It has been demolished and rebuilt several times but now has 46,000 seats.

One of the truly influential stadiums ever, opened in 1914, the Yale Bowl. The 72,000 seat structure is an oval-shaped one deck simple stadium that provided much of the inspiration for many of the later major stadiums and innovations. The Bowl is nearly 13 acres and has nearly 30 miles of seat backs.

Also in 1914 Princeton opened Palmer Stadium, a U-shaped concrete venue with over 40,000 seats. Although a wonderful facility, Palmer's concrete was not mixed well and erosion could be seen as soon as the late 19-teens. Palmer was finally closed in 1993 and a new less beautiful stadium built but Palmer served as another source of inspiration for many architects.

Another stadium with slightly curved sides opened at Mississippi State in 1914, although its design was not nearly as revolutionary as that of the Yale Bowl. In the same state a similar 2-sided park opened a year later.

In 1915 Cornell opened another monumental stadium, although not of the same size as those at the big three – Harvard, Yale and Princeton. But the Crescent-shaped one sided stadium offered beautiful views and was similar in structure to Harvard Stadium.

By 1917 another rounded stadium was built in Madison Wisconsin on the site of a fort. Original capacity was just 10,000. Ultimately a main bowl was completed and an upper deck added to one side. That upper deck still exists and the supports for that upper deck and the way the top rows extend up from the top of the press box are some of the most recognizable features of college football stadia. Camp Randall, though, was becoming structurally potentially hazardous in the early 21st century so recent renovations have again made this a fine place to watch a game.

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1921 through 1923 were big years for college football stadia.

In 1921 60,000 seat Stanford Stadium was built, a unique stadium built with one open corner to allow for the popular 220-yard track race to be ran down a straight line. The same issue caused Ohio State to build one of the most revolutionary stadiums in history.

The Buckeyes' Horseshoe was revolutionary in many respects. It was built of concrete, the first successful implementation of this new material in a college football stadium. It was built on the flood plane of the Olentangy River and use of a revolutionary slurry wall was necessary to keep the water out – the classic excavation technique was not possible in Columbus. The stadium was horseshoe shaped, the first three sided stadium to round its sides. And because the stadium was to have 66,000 seats it was double decked to avoid bad sightlines like appear at the Yale Bowl. This was the first time that was done at a college football stadium. Designers lived by the idea that it was best to go as big as possible (despite university outcry) without losing fan comfort.

Ohio Stadium included ramps, double columns to hold the upper deck which allowed for half the number of columns and thus created better sightlines. It also was the first to have arches with entrances all the way around the outside of the stadium. The north towers are designed based on the Rotunda of the Pantheon in Rome. It is truly a remarkable stadium and unlike so many others has had only minor renovations since its opening, all to improve fan comfort more than adding seats although current capacity has been raised to over 102,000. In 2002 it was voted the most modern stadium in the Big Ten, on its 80th birthday.

The Rose Bowl opened in Pasadena, similar in style to the Yale Bowl but in a buch more impressive setting. Original capacity was 57,000 although recent crowds have reached as much as 106,000. In the same city Memorial Coliseum opened a year later, similar to the Rose Bowl but with one semi-open end and much steeper stands. The Coliseum has hosted two sets of Olympics and has seen many great USC teams, although for much of the time USC did not draw more than 60,000 on average.

Other interesting but less revolutionary stadia opened in the next few years. Vanderbilt Stadium opened in 1922, Rice-Eccles Stadium at Utah in 1927, Memorial Stadium at Oklahoma in 1925, Ross-Ade Stadium at Purdue in 1924, Spartan Stadium in 1923, Scott Stadium at Virginia in 1931, Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill in 1927, Wade Stadium at Duke in 1929, unique for the number of trees around the rim of the stadium, Pitt Stadium in 1925, the Cotton Bowl in 1932, Kinnick Stadium at Iowa in 1929 and Memorial Stadium at Illinois in 1924.

In 1923 Nebraska opened Memorial Stadium and its original capacity of 31,000. A beautiful stadium, Memorial has become one of the strangest looking in college football as additions have added upper decks that are taller than the main historic structure.

In 1924 Tiger Stadium opened at LSU, a small bowl-style stadium that like so many others has been extensively renovated. At its opening it was very simple and small. The same year Nippert Stadium opened in Cincinnati. It still exists but is very different from its small beginnings. The original shell of the stadium actually opened in 1902, making it one of the oldest sites for football in the country. The same year Michie Stadium opened or the military football team in West Point. Ballparks.com voted Michie its favorite American stadium. It is built on a lake with a three-sided main bowl and an upper deck.

Royal-Memorial Stadium in Austin was also built in 1924. Royal Stadium has a large track and one of the tallest upper decks of any facility in the nation.

In 1927 Legion Field in Birmingham opened. Although home to the UAB Blazers it may be best known as the home of Alabama football and the Auburn-Alabama rivalry. That same year Texas A&M opened Kyle Field, which has undergone four renovations and may soon become the nation's largest football stadium with projected renovations giving it upwards of 115,000 seats, ironically most of which will not be filled since the "12th man" fans in College Station stand most of the game.

In 1927 another famous stadium opened in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Michigan Stadium was another revolutionary stadium. Only 16 rows sit above ground level of a 100,000+ seat stadium. It goes deeply underground to avoid sinking into the ground where a spring once stood causing the ground to be like quicksand. In fact a crane sunk into the dirt during construction and remains there even now. The stadium is unique for having the first electronic scoreboards in football, tunnels at midfield and all seats part of the same squared bowl. Outcry over recent renovations has been much over the loss of the communal spirit of everyone being in the same type of seat.

Michigan Stadium is the nation's largest but is now undergoing renovations that will allow it to retain that title but at the same time improve on the facilities and concourses it has lacked for so many years. Plans are wide-ranging and include simply adding more rows to the already large bowl with many seats as many as 300 or 400 feet from the playing field, or adding small upper decks to the ends of the stadium.

Many other quite plain but functional small stadia were built over the next several years, at Tulsa, San Jose State, MTSU, Western Michigan, Toledo, Ohio, Texas Christian, Houston, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado.

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In 1929 famous Sanford Stadium at Georgia opened much smaller than it is now, with 30,000 seats.

A slew of SEC stadia opened in this era, although most opened much smaller than they currently are. Denny Stadium at Alabama, Razorback Stadium at Arkansas, Florida Field, renamed Ben Hill Griffith Stadium, and others like Brice Stadium at South Carolina. Williams-Brice Stadium is currently one of the most interestingly designed parks with huge light towers menacing over the stadium and open corners. Hare Stadium at Auburn opened in 1939 but was renovated and made its current size in 1987.

The Pacific 10 also had several stadia open in the 1920s and '30s. Martin Stadium in Pullman opened in 1936, one of the last to be built of wood. It eventually sustained fire damage and had its stands rebuilg. Husky Stadium opened in 1920 a very large and impressive stadium for the time, built with a capacity of nearly 60,000 mostly in two large upper decks meant to block the sun from the field, a revolutionary idea. Arizona Stadium opened in '28 with a capacity of just 28,000. Renovations have given it a choppy but unique look and almost 57,000 seats. Memorial Stadium at Cal, a bowl similar to the Rose Bowl with rounded sides unlike Michigan Stadium or Notre Dame Stadium, opened in 1923. Its design was unusual and one of a kind because it was built into a hillside. On the press box sideline there are tall arched walls but on the opposite side the top of the stadium is at street level which makes for interesting concourses.

Tennessee's Neyland Stadium has an interesting story. It is often believed to be one of the most historic and enjoyable places to watch a game. The stadium has a long history of renovations. It opened in 1921 as a, get this, 3,200 seat football park. The stadium wasn't actually dedicated until 1962, and still only had average crowds of about 65,000 until 1995 when capacity was increased to over 100,000. Despite a somewhat choppy and steel broken interior look the stadium when filled has a very clean beautiful orange 2-deck look that almost appears larger than the stadium even is.

In 1930 God's house, or more commonly called Notre Dame Stadium, opened a large stadium but still smaller than it is today. It was built in the common, tried-and-true method of the day as a brick walled straight-sided bowl shaped stadium. But while that fact may lead some to believe the stadium was not unique (as it does look much like a smaller version of Michigan Stadium), the greats who have played at, coached and cheered there make it a remarkable facility. It is known now for "Touchdown Jesus" and the golden dome nearby and its lined end zones. In 1996 renovations gave the park a temporary halo, but by 1997 that added space allowed for the addition of 25,000 fans to every game. It now has one of the nicest exteriors of any major college football stadium.

The Florida Citrus Bowl opened in 1936 as Orlando Stadium, built by the Works Progress Administration. It didn't host a game until 1947, when it was renamed the Tangerine Bowl. The stadium, built originally at a cost around 1/10 that of Ohio Stadium, has undergone five renovations to get to its current size. A year later Florida's other famous stadium, the Orange Bowl, opened in Miami. Renovations have raised capacity from 22,000 to 75,000 but the five Super Bowls and 11 National Championship games have made this place this historic venue it is.

In 1940 Akron opened the Rubber Bowl, a stadium that has become famous for being the home of the Soap Box Derby. Like Memorial Stadium at Cal it was built into a hill so that one side of the stadium has walls and the opposite corner top of the stadium is at ground level.

At Northwestern, Ryan Field opened in 1942. It is now known as the "Wrigley Field of college football." Also opening in 1942 was one of the several "Death Valleys," at Clemson. Clemson's famous stadium has been renovated several times and maintains both a loud, boisterous atmosphere and a pretty, natural setting. The sides are very tall and the end zones very short, leaving the view of trees open. It is also home of "the rock" and the "25 most exciting seconds in college football."

Rice opened a 70,000 seat stadium in 1950, although not one of particularly historic or interesting design.

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By the 1950s and '60s college football stadium design, like the soon-to-open cookie cutter stadia for the pros, was getting plain and increasingly focused on including large banks of seats on the sides. Stadia of this sort opened at UTEP, Nevada, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Oregon State, New Mexico, Colorado State, BYU, Air Force, Northern Illionis, Eastern and Central Michigan, Ball State, Kent State, Utah State, Navy, UConn, East Carolina, Baylor, Kansas State, Indiana, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Maryland and Florida State.

The stadia at Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and Indiana are almost identical in design.

Wyoming's War Memorial Stadium opened in 1950 and is simple in design but has curved upper decks around straight-sided lower decks, giving it a unique look.

In Bowling Green, Ohio, a simple stadium was built but was the result of setbacks to designs that would have given the Falcons one of the fanciest, most spectacular small stadia in the nation.

Penn State is one of the most popular and well known college football programs in the nation, and its stadium one of the oddest-looking. Beaver Stadium opened as a simple horseshoe shaped stadium in 1960, well smaller than it is today. Later additions closed the shoe, doubled the height of the bowl on one side, then the other. Then additions in the 1980s added an upper deck to one end zone. Additions in 2001 added two upper decks to the other end zone, giving Beaver Stadium one-deck of sideline seats, two decks in one end zone and three in the other end zone. Despite the odd design the park has a nice look to its exterior and fans continue to flock to games although some games fall just short of sellouts. The facility is second largest in the country, just 223 seats smaller than Michigan Stadium as of 2005.

One of the more unique stadia opened in Eugene, Oregon in 1967. Autzen Stadium has a design in which the stands rise slowly at the sidelines and dip in the ends. From above the stadium's outside walls make a circle around a rectangular field. Autzen has since been renovated to make it even stranger. The field there is also unique with deeply differing shades of green every five yards.

The Liberty Bowl in Memphis, which opened just two years before Autzen, has a similar if slightly less pronounced design.

Astroturf became big in this period too. Husky Stadium at Washington was the first to implement artificial turf in 1968. Every Big Ten stadium took on Astroturf except for Ross-Ade Stadium at Purdue, a fact enthusiasts in West Lafayette are very proud of. Many of those stadia lost Astroturf around 1990, some like Ohio State and Purdue taking a new surface called Prescription Athletic Turf, a new manicured but natural grass.

Speaking of cookie cutters, they were designed to host two sports. Several college teams share their stadia with NFL teams. Arizona State, San Diego State, South Florida, Tulane, Minnesota, Temple, Pittsburgh all currently do. Interestingly most took up with their pro counterpart sometime during the cookie cutter era.

New parks in the '70s in '80s appeared at Fresno State, Boise State, New Mexico State, Louisiana Monroe, Louisiana Lafayette, Arkansas State, Kentucky, UNLV, Miami (OH), Southern Mississippi, Iowa State, West Virginia and Syracuse. These were similar to the '60s and '70s stadia, usually with slightly more intricate designs and better amenities, but still often lacking the charm of the old parks.

The stadium at Boise State, home of the Humanitarian Bowl, is known as one of the most beautiful in the nation as well as one of the most unique for its blue artificial turf.

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And recently college football stadia, like baseball fields, have gone retro. New stadia have been to a large extent single-decked, often horseshoe style but with interesting quirks like lawn seating and lots of luxury suites surrounding the top of the stadium. SMU, Marshall and Buffalo have all been built since 1991.

Perhaps the jewel of modern college football stadia opened in 1998 in Louisville. It is a blunted horseshoe shape, holds a comfortable 42,000 fans and has a large section of covered and indoor seating. The park is just one deck but is home to one of the finest training facilities in the country and is widely known as one of college football's new gems.

Also in recent years renovating has become a fad for colleges with historic stadia. Renovations at Ohio State, Penn State, Virginia Tech, Oregon, Wisconsin and Arkansas just to name a few, have increased seating capacity, but more importantly improved the game experience for fans. Modern pro-style amenities have been added. Ohio State added 82 luxury suites and 5,000 club seats for revenue and to appease its wealthy fans, despite the fact that not adding these features would have allowed it to have the largest stadium in America. The schools listed in this paragraph have had the more successful renovations in recent years.

Renovations have become better and better, more an effort to improve the experience and improve the aesthetics of the stadia instead of just adding seats as some older renovations at schools like Tennessee, did.

Also there has been recent attention on noise at football stadiums. Since the NCAA repealed the rule about volume levels fans have gotten more and more noisy in attempts to disrupt opponents. And although there are few easy places to play in the NCAA anymore, one study showed the four loudest stadiums at Clemson, LSU, Ohio State and Penn State.

The different conference stadia have developed reputations for their stadia. The leagues' different venues certainly do have similarities. In the SEC historic but heavily renovated stadia have an almost-NFL look as many have main bowls and side upper decks as well as on-field hedges. Fans in the SEC are said to be religious about football, and they are.

The Big Ten has a reputation for some of the real classics – Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa – as well as the best attendance and some of the best fans. The Big Ten has a nice group of varied ballparks.

In the Pacific 10 the Rose Bowl, Memorial Stadium at Cal and the L.A. Coliseum dominate attention as the great bowls. Pac-10 fans do not have glorious reputations but come out in impressive numbers and levels of enthusiasm at places like Autzen Stadium at Oregon. The Pac-10 has many great natural settings.

In the Big XII, unique big stadia and die hard fans are the reputation. Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and anymore Kansas State and Colorado are the big names, have lots of tradition and fun venues.

Stadia have also developed reputations for their quirks. Many now have "victory bells," all with different sounds. Many have incorporated the band into stadium tradition – just ask an Ohio State fan.

Since television has become big, many stadiums are recognizable by their fields. Overall the most intricate designs appear in the SEC, although that may be because grass grows best in November in the south. At Tennessee there are checkerboard end zones, at Notre Dame slanted lines like in football long ago in the end zones, Boise State blue turf and at Oregon deep varying shades of green.

[GreenBayRay]

A very good wrapup - don't forget Minnesota's new stadium is coming soon. It's going to have a retro look but all the modern conveniences, and it'll bring the game back to campus instead of downtown. I'm a Wisconsin fan but I'm looking forward to it.