The
Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium is the on-campus
footballAmerican football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, and often as Gridiron or Tackle football outside North America, is a competitive team sport known for combining strategy with physical play. The objective of the game is to score points by advancing the ball into the...
facility for the
University of OklahomaThe University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. As of 2007, the university has 29,931 students enrolled, most...
SoonersThe University of Oklahoma features 17 varsity sports teams. Both men's and women's teams are called the Sooners, a nickname given to the early participants in the land rushes which initially opened the Oklahoma Indian Territory to non-native settlement. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A,...
in
Norman, OklahomaNorman is the largest city in and the county seat of Cleveland County in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, and is part of the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Statistical Area....
. The official capacity of the
stadiumA modern stadium is a place, or venue, for outdoor sports, concerts or other events, consisting of a field or stage partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.-History of the stadium:The word originates from the Greek word...
following recent renovations is 82,112, making it the 14th largest college stadium in the United States and the third largest in the
Big 12 ConferenceThe Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference of twelve schools located mostly in the central United States. It is a member of the NCAA's Division I for all sports; its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision , the higher of two levels of NCAA Division I football competition...
(behind Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas and
Kyle FieldKyle Field is the football stadium located on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. It has been the home to the Texas A&M Aggie football team in rudimentary form since 1904, and as a complete stadium since 1927. It is known as The Home of the 12th Man...
at
Texas A&M UniversityTexas A&M University, often referred to as A&M or TAMU, is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas. It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The seventh-largest university in the United States, A&M enrolls over 48,000 students in ten...
). The record attendance for the stadium was set during a 2008 home game against
Texas Tech UniversityTexas Tech University, often referred to as Texas Tech or TTU, is a public, coeducational, research university in Lubbock, Texas, United States. Established on February 10, 1923, and originally known as Texas Technological College, it is the leading institution of the Texas Tech University System...
with 85,646 in attendance. The stadium is also the site of Spring
CommencementGraduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is sometimes associated, where students become Graduates. Before the graduation, candidates are referred to as Graduands. The date of graduation is often called degree day. The graduation itself is also...
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 in section 29, between the 20- and 35-yard lines. The Sooners' bench was once located on the east side with the students, but the home bench was moved to the west (shady) side in the mid-1990s.
Early history
The first game played at the current stadium site was in 1923, with the Sooners prevailing over
Washington UniversityWashington University in St. Louis is a nonsectarian, private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853 and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than one hundred and twenty five nations...
62–7. 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 IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
. The facility was constructed at an approximate cost of $293,000, and coach
Bennie OwenBenjamin Gilbert Owen was an American head coach for the University of Oklahoma Sooners football team from 1905-1926.-Overview:...
himself helped raise the money. 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 formal reference is to say that a game is played in Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium at Owen Field).
There are two main reasons why the stadium is not a fully-enclosed "bowl" like, for example,
Michigan StadiumMichigan Stadium, nicknamed The Big House, is the football stadium for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Michigan Stadium has often been called "The Carnegie Hall of all Sports" and is also known as "the House that Yost built." It was built in 1927, at a cost of $950,000 and had an...
or the
Rose BowlThe Rose Bowl is an outdoor American Football stadium in Pasadena, California, near Los Angeles. The stadium is the site of the annual college American football bowl game, the Rose Bowl Game, held at the beginning of the New Year. In 1982, it became the home field of the UCLA Bruins college...
. 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.
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. 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.
AstroTurfAstroTurf is a brand of artificial turf. Though the term is a registered trademark, it is sometimes used as a generic description of any kind of artificial turf...
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. 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.
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.
In the fall of 1981, the University of Oklahoma joined with the
University of GeorgiaThe University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning. Founded in 1785, UGA claims to be the oldest public university in the United States....
to sue the NCAA in Federal court in
Oklahoma CityOklahoma City is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma.Oklahoma City may also refer to:*Oklahoma City metropolitan area*Downtown Oklahoma City*Uptown Oklahoma City*Oklahoma City bombing*Oklahoma City National Memorial...
. In this class-action lawsuit on behalf of members of the College Football Association, the two schools alleged that the NCAA's contracts with
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. It first broadcast on television in 1948...
,
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in Burbank,California...
, and
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
violated the
Sherman Antitrust ActThe Sherman Antitrust Act requires the United States Federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies and organizations suspected of violating the 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. Less than two years later, the Sooners and the rest of Division I-A were playing seven to ten games each season on television. This presented a new problem for the University and its stadium.
At the time, the thriving Sooners and the hapless
Chicago CubsThe Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's National League. They are one of two Major League clubs based in Chicago , the Cubs are also one of the two remaining charter members of the...
had one thing in common: neither
Wrigley FieldWrigley Field is a baseball stadium in Chicago, Illinois, United States that has served as the home ballpark of the Chicago Cubs since 1916. It was built in 1914 as Weeghman Park for the Chicago Federal League baseball team, the Chicago Whales...
nor Owen Field had permanent artificial lighting sufficient for television broadcasts at night. 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
candlepowerCandlepower is a now-obsolete unit which was used to express levels of light intensity in terms of the light emitted by a candle of specific size and constituents...
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 was not 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.
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.
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. The OU College of Architecture was housed under the west stands and in the north end zone, until other facilities became available in 1990. 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 SchoonerThe Sooner Schooner is the official mascot of the sports teams of the University of Oklahoma Sooners. Pulled by two white ponies named Boomer and Sooner, it is a scaled-down replica of the Conestoga wagon used by settlers of the Oklahoma Territory around the time of the Land Run of 1889...
during a 1993 game against
ColoradoThe University of Colorado at Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the University of Colorado system and was founded five months before Colorado was admitted to the union in 1876...
. 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.
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. 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.
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 placed 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. The renovation, led by architecture firms
360 Architecture360 Architecture is an architectural practice focused on planning, design and execution. The firm provides services for a range of project types, including corporate headquarters and commercial office buildings, sports arenas and ballparks, municipal facilities, single- and multi-family residential...
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. The Barry Switzer Center, under the south end zone, 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 medicineSports medicine specializes in preventing, diagnosing and treating injuries related to participating in sports and/or exercise, specifically the rotation or deformation of joints or muscles caused by engaging in such physical activities.-See also:...
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 CenterThe Lloyd Noble Center is an 11,528-seat multi-purpose arena in Norman, Oklahoma, United States, some south of downtown Oklahoma City. The arena opened in 1975...
, 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.
$12 million toward the $75 million cost of the stadium project was donated by
Christy Gaylord EverestChristy Gaylord Everest is the chairman and chief executive for the Oklahoma Publishing Company, which publishes The Oklahoman, a major metro newspaper that has been owned by her family since before Oklahoma statehood in 1907. She formerly was the chairperson of the University of Oklahoma Board of...
, current publisher of
The OklahomanThe Oklahoman is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma and is the only daily newspaper that covers the entire Oklahoma City area. The Gaylord family owns the newspaper, which helped build a multi-billion dollar fortune.-History:...
and daughter of
Edward K. GaylordEdward King Gaylord , often referred to as E.K. Gaylord, was the founder and publisher of the Daily Oklahoman newspaper , as well as a radio and television entrepreneur....
, in 2002. The stadium was renamed to its current name in honor of this gift. (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).
Recent innovations and future plans
In a February 2007 radio interview, OU Athletic Director
Joe CastiglioneJoseph Robert Castiglione is the Athletic Director at the University of Oklahoma.The former Athletic Director at the University of Missouri, he received the 2004 Bobby Dodd Award for athletic director of the year. He has overseen four national championships in the various sports within his...
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. In March 2007, the OU Board of Regents approved 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.
The improvements include the installation of a state-of-the-art
DaktronicsDaktronics Inc. is an American company based in Brookings, South Dakota that designs, manufactures, sells, and services video board, scoreboards, digital billboards and related products. The company is best known for its electronic LED displays...
16mm
HD-readyHigh-definition television is a digital television broadcasting system with higher resolution than traditional television systems...
video replay board in the north end zone, which replaced an older matrix messageboard, and digital 23mm LED ribbon displays along the edges of both upper decks, the north end zone, and the north tunnel entrances. Eight new concession stands were added, along with more than 60 new toilets in the women's restrooms, 30 new water fountains, handrails on all aisles of the upper decks, new speakers in all restrooms, and a new public address system.
Phase two replaced the obsolete displays and sound system of the Lloyd Noble Center. The final phase was completed prior to the 2008 season and included replacement of the stadium's south scoreboard and sound system within the existing structure. The new displays are compatible with high-definition television equipment, although no HD cameras were purchased during the project.
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