Franklin Field
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Franklin Field | |
|---|---|
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| Location | S. 33rd and Spruce Sts. Philadelphia, PA 19104 |
| Broke ground | 1895 |
| Opened | 1895 (field) 1922 (stands) |
| Owner | Univ. of Pennsylvania |
| Operator | Univ. of Pennsylvania |
| Surface | SprinTurf (field) Rekortan (track) |
| Construction cost | $100,000 (1895) |
| Architect | Frank Miles Day, Charles Klauder |
| Tenants | |
| Penn Quakers (Football & Track and Field, since 1895) Philadelphia Eagles (1958-70) Temple Owls (football, 1990s-2002) |
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| Capacity | |
| 52,593 | |
Franklin Field is the University of Pennsylvania's stadium for football, field hockey, lacrosse, sprint football, and track and field (and formerly for soccer). It is also used by Penn students for recreation, and for intramural and club sports, including touch football and cricket, and is the site of Penn's graduation exercises, weather permitting. It is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the eastern edge of Penn's campus, across the Schuylkill River from Center City. It opened in 1895 at a cost of $100,000 for the first running of the Penn Relays. The Field, deemed by the NCAA as the oldest stadium still operating for football, was the site of the nation's first scoreboard in 1895, and became the nation's second two-tiered football stadium in 1925. The current stadium structure was built in the 1920s after the original wooden bleachers were torn down. The lower tier was built in 1922 and the second tier was added in 1925. Franklin Field was once the largest two-tiered stadium in the United States. Today, the stadium seats 52,593.
Franklin Field has hosted the annual Penn Relays, the largest track-and-field meet in the U.S., for over 100 years. The April 29, 1961 premiere of ABC's Wide World of Sports featured the Penn Relays from Franklin Field.
The Army-Navy football game series was held here for many of the years between 1899 and 1935 before moving to the larger Municipal Stadium in South Philadelphia.
The stadium was the site of the speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in which he accepted the 1936 Democratic Party's nomination for a second term as president.
Franklin Field was also the home of the Philadelphia Eagles from 1958 through 1970. The Eagles hosted the 1960 NFL Championship Game here, defeating the Green Bay Packers, 17-13, in Packers' coach Vince Lombardi's only career playoff loss. Also on August 23, 1958, the first Canadian Football League game played on American soil between two Canadian teams was played at Franklin Field, as the Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeated the Ottawa Rough Riders, 13-7.
Several infamous incidents occurred at the stadium while the Eagles played there. During the halftime show of a December 15, 1968 game with the Minnesota Vikings, some fans booed a young man in a Santa Claus costume who was taken from the stands as the scheduled Santa was snowed in in Wildwood, New Jersey, and pelted him with snowballs. This incident is often referred to by sportscasters in denigrating Philadelphia sports fans as so mean they booed Santa Claus.
On November 23, 1970, announcer Howard Cosell was apparently drunk during a nationally televised broadcast of the Eagles-New York Giants Monday Night Football game. After throwing up on color commentator Don Meredith's cowboy boots shortly before halftime, Cosell left the stadium and took a taxi back to New York City. Meredith and play-by-play announcer Keith Jackson made little mention of his departure during the second half. Later, denying drunkenness, Cosell claimed that he had been dizzy from running laps around Franklin Field's track before the game with track star Tommie Smith.
Just 27 days later, the Eagles played their last game at Franklin Field, defeating the cross-state rival Pittsburgh Steelers, 30-20.
It hosted the Division I NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship in 1973 and 1992 and will host the NCAA Division I Women's Lacrosse Championship in May of 2007.
Drum Corps International held its annual Drum and Bugle Corps World Championships at the stadium in 1975 and 1976. A drum and bugle corps is a musical marching band consisting of brass and percussion instruments and a color guard. Typically operating as independent non-profit organizations, such corps perform at field competitions, parades, and other civic functions. The prime age for participation is 14 to 22, but many corps enroll age groups younger and older. Competitive corps participate in summer touring circuits culminating at the DCI World Championships.
From the 1990s until 2002, to accommodate the Eagles and the Philadelphia Phillies, whose regular seasons overlapped by a month, Temple University scheduled several of its August and September home football games at Franklin Field, while playing the rest of those seasons at Veterans Stadium.
In 2004, Franklin Field was home to the first rugby league match between the United States and Australia. The United States led the World Cup-holders Australia for much of the game but eventually lost 36-24.
In the 2006 movie Invincible, Franklin Field served as a stand-in for the demolished Veterans Stadium, images of which were digitally superimposed on some of the football action sequences.
[edit] External links
- Official site of Franklin Field
- Summary at Ivy League official site
- Architectural photos of Franklin Field
| Preceded by Shibe Park 1942-1957 |
Home of the Philadelphia Eagles 1958-1970 |
Succeeded by Veterans Stadium 1971–2002 |
| Football Stadiums of the Ivy League |
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| Brown Stadium (Brown) • Franklin Field (Penn) • Harvard Stadium (Harvard) • Memorial Field (Dartmouth) • Princeton Stadium (Princeton) • Schoellkopf Field (Cornell) • Wien Stadium (Columbia) • Yale Bowl (Yale) |
