Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium

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Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
at Owen Field
Location	180 W Brooks Norman, OK 73019
Broke ground	1923
Opened	1925
Owner	University of Oklahoma
Operator	University of Oklahoma
Surface	Grass
Construction cost	$293,000 USD
Former names
Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
Tenants
Oklahoma Sooners (NCAA) (1923-Present)
Capacity
82,112

The Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium is the on-campus football facility for the University of Oklahoma Sooners in Norman, Oklahoma. The official capacity of the stadium following recent renovations is 82,112, making it the 15th largest college stadium in the United States and the 3rd largest in the Big 12 Conference (behind Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas and Kyle Field at Texas A&M University).^[1] The record attendance for the stadium was set during a 2006 home game against Texas Tech with 85,313 in attendance. The stadium is also the site of Spring Commencement exercises for the University.

The stadium is a horseshoe-shaped facility with its long axis oriented north/south, with the north end enclosed and the south end open. Visitor seating is in the south end zone and the southern sections of the east side. The student seating sections are in the east stands, surrounding the 350-member Pride of Oklahoma which sits between the 20- and 35-yard lines. The Sooners' bench was also located on the east side with the students, but the home bench was moved to the west (shady) side in the mid-1990s so the Sooners can take respite in the tall shadow of the press box from the sweltering August and September heat – a key advantage for the Sooners against teams from cooler climates or with inadequate heat conditioning. A new Big 12 Conference rule requires schools to move their bands from behind the opposing team's bench starting in 2007;^[2] no decisions have been made concerning the 2007 seating configuration.^[3]

There are two main reasons why the stadium is not a fully-enclosed "bowl" like, for example, Michigan Stadium or the Rose Bowl. First, access to the three outdoor football practice fields, which are behind the south end zone seats, would have been restricted by completely enclosing the south end of the stadium. Secondly, any enclosure would have forced the baseball field, which shared its outfield with the practice fields until 1982, to shorten its left field line considerably.^[4] (See this photo, which is from the same viewpoint as the current photo in the infobox on this page. The baseball field is clearly visible in the top left.)

Contents 1 Early history 2 Lights, camera, football, money 3 A 21st century stadium 4 Future plans 5 References 6 External links 7 See also

[edit] Early history

The first game played at the current stadium site was in 1923, with the Sooners prevailing over Washington University 62-7.^[5] When 16,000 permanent seats were built on the west side of the site in 1925, the new stadium was named Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in honor of university students and personnel that died during World War I. The facility was constructed at an approximate cost of $293,000,^[4] and coach Bennie Owen himself helped raise the money.^[6] To honor Owen, the playing surface was named Owen Field during the 1920s. (The stadium is popularly called Owen Field, but in actuality the field and the stadium are two separate objects with two separate names. The correct reference is to say that a game is played in Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium at Owen Field.)

More permanent seating was added, this time to the east side, in 1929. In 1949, the north end of the stadium was enclosed, the playing area was lowered six feet, and a running track was added around the field.^[4] The stadium capacity when completed was 55,000 and the addition of south end bleachers in 1957 brought capacity to just under 62,000 fans. AstroTurf replaced the natural grass field in 1970. The west side upper deck was added in 1975, featuring a lounge and a new press box, for a total capacity of 71,187 fans at a cost of about $5.7 million.^[5] Improved south end zone seating, including new coaches offices and training facilities, was added in 1980 and the old turf was replaced with Superturf in 1981. With a few exceptions, these changes took place during or shortly after the Sooners' national championship seasons of 1950, 1955, 1956, 1974, and 1975 – all high times for Sooner sports.

[edit] Lights, camera, football, money

Up until the 1980s, the NCAA had a tight grip on television contracts for Division I-A college football games. Compared to the current plethora of college football games on television, only two (on rare occasions, three) college football games were televised each week and the schedule of games was set in stone well in advance of the season opening. The NCAA reasoned that televised games cut into attendance, and more TV games would cost more money in lost gate receipts than could be gained with television contracts.^[7]

In the fall of 1981, the University of Oklahoma joined with the University of Georgia to sue the NCAA in Federal court in Oklahoma City.^[8] In this class-action lawsuit on behalf of members of the College Football Association, the two schools alleged that the NCAA's contracts with ABC, NBC, and CBS violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by preventing each college and conference from selling its product on the open market. The court agreed with the schools in 1982 and voided the NCAA's television contracts.^[7] Less than two years later, the Sooners and the rest of Division I-A were playing seven to ten games each season on television. However, this good fortune presented a new problem for the University and its stadium.

The successful Sooners and the hapless Chicago Cubs had one thing in common: neither Wrigley Field nor Owen Field had permanent artificial lighting sufficient for television broadcasts at night. Obviously, this meant that untelevised home games had to start in the morning or early afternoon so as to be completed by dark, because the cost of leasing a set of portable television lights was too high for a game that would not earn enough revenue to pay for those lights. For all televised games, portable lights on trucks were rented – but the leasing costs cut into the University's revenue, and often the four or five portable light trucks stayed on campus for weeks in anticipation of the next televised game. True night games were very difficult to play in Norman because of the amount of portable lighting needed to illuminate the field adequately for spectators to see the players, much less the candlepower required for television. Prior to 1982, the University knew which games would be televised and could plan months ahead for leasing the necessary lighting.

With the successful outcome of the court case against the NCAA, more late afternoon and night games were scheduled in Norman and television schedules changed during the season, requiring large portable light trucks to take up space on campus while waiting for the next televised game. It wasn't until 1997 that permanent television lights were installed in all four corners of the stadium, along with a new south end zone video scoreboard to replace the antiquated main scoreboard.^[4]

Owen Field switched back to natural grass (prescription turf) from the aging Superturf in 1994, improving the field's drainage system in the process. (Prior to the drainage improvements it was not uncommon for water to make large pools on the sidelines during heavy rains.) These two improvements, the turf switch in 1994 and the lighting/scoreboard installation in 1997, were the only major improvements to the stadium for nearly 20 years.

[edit] A 21st century stadium

By 1999, the 75-year-old stadium was showing its age. Except for the turf and lighting enhancements, no substantial upgrade of the stadium had occurred since the press box was built 25 years earlier, in 1975.^[9] The OU College of Architecture was housed under the west stands and in the north end zone, until other facilities became available in 1990.^[10] The artificial turf on Owen Field had literally become threadbare before its replacement in 1981; it is possible that the poor condition of the Superturf, prior to its 1994 replacement, contributed to a crash of the Sooner Schooner during a 1993 game against Colorado.^[11] The east side of the stadium still had the original dirt flooring underneath the stands, making for a cloudy, dusty walk into the student and visitor seating sections. Restrooms were old and inadequate; paint was peeling off external walls and the areas under the stands (the east side in particular) were dark and smelled like dust. It seemed that, along with the Sooners' football misfortunes, from 1987 to 1998, the stadium was a has-been.

Plans began in 1997 to upgrade most athletic department facilities, beginning with a five-year fundraising campaign. Then, unexpectedly, the Sooners won the BCS National Championship for the 2000 season. The University began to get more freshman applications than it could house due in large part to the football team's success.^[12] Along with other campus improvements such as more and better student housing, the refurbishment and expansion plan for the stadium was accelerated to be ready by the beginning of the 2003 season.^[9]

In 2002, every seat in the stadium was replaced and the north end zone scoreboard was dismantled in preparation for replacement. From 2003 to 2004, the entire video and audio systems were replaced and new video scoreboards were place at both end zones. The west side, long ignored except for the press box construction in 1975, received restroom and concession improvements. Most importantly, a street running east of the east stands was moved to allow for the construction of an upper deck with club seating for 2,500 and 27 suites on the east side, which increased the capacity of the stadium to its current figure of over 82,000.^[9] The renovation, lead by architecture firms 360 Architecture and HOK, cost $54 million.

The north and west entries were renovated to match the Cherokee Gothic look of most campus buildings, and other cosmetic enhancements were made to the press box. A reflecting pool just north of the stadium, filled in during the 1949 north end zone expansion, was restored in 2000. A new war memorial, listing the names of all Sooners killed while serving in the U.S. armed forces, was placed next to the reflecting pool in 2003.

At the south end of the stadium is the Barry Switzer Center. The facility was opened in 1999 and houses the football locker room, video rooms, football coaches offices, the football conditioning center, a state-of-the-art sports medicine facility, and the Legends Lobby, a large museum dedicated to the history of Oklahoma football.

The basketball coaches' offices are located in the Lloyd Noble Center, but the rest of the OU athletic coaches' offices, the Athletic Director's office, and the OU Athletics administrators' offices are located in the north end of the stadium in the McClendon Center.^[13]

$12 million toward the $75 million cost of the stadium project was donated by Christy Gaylord Everest, current publisher of The Oklahoman and daughter of Edward K. Gaylord, in 2002. The stadium was renamed to its current name in honor of this gift.^[9] (The Gaylords donated a total of $50 million to the University around this time, including $22 million for a new building to house the College of Journalism.^[6])

[edit] Future plans

In a February 2007 radio interview, OU Athletic Director Joe Castiglione said that a new stadium master plan was in development. Castiglione spoke about replacing the press box and expanding the south end zone seating but gave no timetable or other details.^[4]

The agenda for the annual meeting of the OU Board of Regents included an Athletic Department request for $10.3 million to replace the displays and the sound systems of both the stadium and the Lloyd Noble Center.^[14] The first phase, scheduled for completion before the start of the 2007-08 football season, will install an LED scoreboard and LED ribbon displays in the north end zone. Phase two will replace the obsolete displays and sound system of the Lloyd Noble Center, and the final phase includes "LED video display improvements and expansion within the existing structure" of the south scoreboard and the sound system, to be ready by August 2008. The new displays will be compatible with high-definition television equipment.^[15]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium information page
• Official McClendon Center information page
• History of the stadium with a picture gallery

Coordinates: 35°12′21.17″N, 97°26′33.04″W

[edit] See also

• Bob Stoops
• Barry Switzer
• Bowl Championship Series
• NCAA Division I-A national football championship
• Oklahoma Sooners
• 2005 University of Oklahoma bombing

Football Stadiums of the Big 12 Conference

Bill Snyder Family Stadium (Kansas State) • Boone Pickens Stadium (Oklahoma State) • Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium (Texas) • Faurot Field (Missouri) • Floyd Casey Stadium (Baylor) • Folsom Field (Colorado) • Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium (Oklahoma) • Jack Trice Stadium (Iowa State) • Jones AT&T Stadium (Texas Tech) • Kyle Field (Texas A&M) • Memorial Stadium (Kansas) • Memorial Stadium (Nebraska)

	University of Oklahoma
	Academics	College of Engineering • College of Architecture • Price College of Business • Arts & Sciences • Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication • College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences • College of Earth and Energy • College of Education • Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts • University College • Law School • Medical School
	Athletics	Oklahoma Sooners • Oklahoma Memorial Stadium • Lloyd Noble Center • L. Dale Mitchell Baseball Park • Field House • Red River Shootout • Red River Shootout trophies • Bedlam • RUF/NEKS • Sooner Schooner• Boomer and Sooner
	Campus	Student Union • National Weather Center • Natural History Museum • Museum of Art
	Student Life	Oklahoma Daily • Campus Corner • The Pride of Oklahoma • Alumni