Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
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Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, also known as Owen Field or The Palace on the Prairie, is the
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
stadium on the campus of the
University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...
in
Norman, Oklahoma Norman () is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, with a population of 128,097 as of 2021. It is the largest city and the county seat of Cleveland County, Oklahoma, Cleveland County, and the second-largest city in the Oklahoma C ...
. It serves as the home of the
Oklahoma Sooners football The Oklahoma Sooners football program is a college football team that represents the University of Oklahoma (variously "Oklahoma" or "OU"). The team is a member of the Big 12 Conference, which is in Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (forme ...
team. The official
seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...
of the stadium, following renovations before the start of the 2019 season, is 86,112, making it the 22nd largest stadium in the world, the 13th largest college stadium in the United States and the second largest in the
Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...
, behind
Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium (formerly War Memorial Stadium, Memorial Stadium, and Texas Memorial Stadium), located in Austin, Texas, on the campus of the University of Texas, has been home to the Longhorns football team since 1924. The sta ...
at the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
. The stadium is a bowl-shaped facility with its long axis oriented north/south, with both the north and south ends enclosed. The south end has only been enclosed since the 2015-2016 off-season, when it was renovated as part of a $160 million project. 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 The Pride of Oklahoma Marching Band, known as "The Pride", is the student marching band for the University of Oklahoma Sooners. Early years The Pride was founded in 1904 as a pep band to play at Sooner football games. In the early years of the ...
band 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 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 University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
62–7. Originally, seating consisted of an approximately 500-seat bleacher area on the east side. The first permanent seating wasn't built until 1925, when 16,000 seats were built on the west side of the site–corresponding to the lower level of the current facility's west grandstands. However, OU reckons 1923 as the stadium's opening date. The new stadium was named "Oklahoma Memorial Stadium" in honor of university students and personnel that died during
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. The facility was constructed at an approximate cost of $293,000, and coach
Bennie Owen Benjamin Gilbert Owen (July 24, 1875 – February 26, 1970) was an American football player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He served as the head football coach at Washburn College, now Washburn University, in 1900, at Bethany C ...
himself helped raise the money. To honor Owen, the playing surface was named Owen Field during the 1920s. The stadium as a whole has long been called Owen Field, but in actuality the field and the stadium are two separate objects with two separate names. There are two main reasons why the stadium was not originally a fully enclosed "bowl" like, for example,
Michigan Stadium Michigan Stadium, nicknamed "The Big House," is the football stadium for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is the largest stadium in the United States and the Western Hemisphere, the third largest stadium in the world, and the ...
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. 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 with the elimination of the running track around the field. This created a 55,000-seat "horseshoe," and the addition of south end bleachers in 1957 brought capacity to just under 61,836 fans.
AstroTurf AstroTurf is an American subsidiary of SportGroup that produces artificial turf for playing surfaces in sports. The original AstroTurf product was a short-pile synthetic turf invented in 1965 by Monsanto. Since the early 2000s, AstroTurf has m ...
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. The new turf was more or less a necessity; the old surface had literally become threadbare. 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 The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
had a tight grip on television contracts for
Division I-A The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...
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, OU and the
University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...
sued the NCAA in federal court in
Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...
. In this
class-action lawsuit A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...
on behalf of members of the College Football Association, the two schools alleged that the NCAA's contracts with
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
,
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
, and
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
violated the
Sherman Antitrust Act The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author. Th ...
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. However, the ruling was appealed by the NCAA and finally heard by the
Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
, (''NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma'', 468 U.S. 85 (1984)). The Supreme Court upheld the original trial decision, confirming that the NCAA's television plan indeed violated the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts. Less than two years later, the Sooners and the rest of
Division I-A The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...
were playing seven to ten games each season on television. This presented a new problem for both the Sooners and Owen Field. At the time, Owen Field did not have 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 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 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 light 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 the 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, or Prescription Athletic Turf, from the aging Superturf in 1994, improving the field's drainage system in the process. The switch was more or less out of necessity, as the condition of the Superturf field had deteriorated to the point it was almost unplayable. The turf's poor condition is widely believed to have contributed to a crash of the
Sooner Schooner The Sooner Schooner is an 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 Studebaker Conestoga wagon used by settlers of the Ok ...
during a 1993 game against
Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
. The return to natural grass in 1994 and the lighting and scoreboard installation in 1997 would be the only major improvements to the stadium for nearly 20 years.


21st-century improvements

By 1999, the 75-year-old stadium was showing its age. Aside from the turf and lighting enhancements, the last substantial upgrade to the stadium had been the construction of the press box 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 east stands 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 video and audio systems were completely 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 83,469. The renovation, led by architecture firms
360 Architecture 360 Architecture was an American architectural practice acquired by HOK in 2015. The firm provided services for a range of project types including corporate headquarters and commercial office buildings, sports arenas, stadiums and ballparks, mun ...
and HOK Sport, 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 Sooners killed while serving in the U.S. armed forces, was placed next to the reflecting pool in 2003. The basketball coaches' offices are located in the
Lloyd Noble Center The Lloyd Noble Center is a 10,967-seat multi-purpose arena located in Norman, Oklahoma, some south of downtown Oklahoma City. It opened in 1975 and is home to the University of Oklahoma men's and women's basketball teams. History Before the co ...
, 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 Everest Christy Gaylord Everest (born 1951) is the former chair and chief executive officer of Oklahoma Publishing Company,Mecoy, Don"OPUBCO expands holdings" ''The Oklahoman'', February 14, 2010 (accessed February 19, 2010). which formerly published ''The ...
, then publisher of ''
The Oklahoman ''The Oklahoman'' is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma, United States, and is the only regional daily that covers the Greater Oklahoma City area. The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly Audit Bureau Circulation) lists it as the 59th larges ...
'' and daughter of
Edward K. Gaylord Edward King Gaylord (March 5, 1873 – May 30, 1974), often referred to as E.K. Gaylord, was the owner and publisher of the ''Daily Oklahoman'' newspaper (now ''The Oklahoman''), as well as a radio and television entrepreneur. Born in Atchison, K ...
, 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.) Rock band U2 performed a sold-out show at the stadium as a part of the 360° Tour on 18 October 2009.


Barry Switzer Center

The Barry Switzer Center housed football offices, the football locker room, equipment room, the Siegfried Strength and Conditioning Complex, the Freede Sports Medicine Facility and the Touchdown Club Legends Lobby. The Center was located at the south end of the stadium. It was dedicated on April 24, 1999, and named after OU’s all-time winningest head football coach. During Summer 2015 the Switzer Center was demolished as part of the expansion of the stadium. In
Barry Switzer Barry Layne Switzer (born October 5, 1937) is a former American football coach and player. He served for 16 years as head football coach at the University of Oklahoma and four years as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football Le ...
’s 16 seasons as the
Oklahoma Sooners The Oklahoma Sooners are the athletic teams that represent the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman. The 19 men's and women's varsity teams are called the "Sooners", a reference to a nickname given to the early participants in the Land Run ...
head football coach, the team won three national championships, 12
Big Eight Conference The Big Eight Conference was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football. It was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Associatio ...
championships and eight bowl games in 13 appearances.


Mural

Artist Ted Watts completed a mural in the Barry Switzer Center in December 1998, and updated the mural to include later accomplishments in 2002, 2005 and 2009. Subjects included:


Recent innovations and future plans

In a February 2007 radio interview, OU Athletic Director
Joe Castiglione Joseph John Castiglione (born March 2, 1947) is an American radio announcer for the Boston Red Sox baseball team,Joe Castigl ...
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
Daktronics Daktronics is an American company based in Brookings, South Dakota that designs, manufactures, sells, and services video displays, scoreboards, digital billboards, dynamic message signs, sound systems, and related products. Founded in 1968 by ...
16mm HD-ready 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. On March 10, 2015, the University of Oklahoma board of regents approved the initial construction of "Phase 1" to renovate Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. The renovation is expected to cost approximately $160 million and anticipated completion is just prior to the start of the 2016 football season. Due to uncertain economic conditions, the board of regents decided to start with "Phase 1" (which will focus primarily on the south endzone, football offices, training center and weight room), and proceed to "Phase 2" (which will focus on the west side of the stadium, including the press box, club seats and new facade. As well as various improvements to restrooms, escalators and concessions) at a later date, when the economic conditions have improved. The first phase of construction will bowl in the south endzone, and bring the total capacity to 83,489.


Timeline of seating capacity

* 16,000 (1925–1928) * 32,000 (1929–1948) * 55,647 (1949–1956) * 61,724 (1957–1962) * 61,836 (1963–1974) * 71,187 (1975–1979) * 75,008 (1980–1983) * 75,004 (1984–1997) * 72,765 (1998–2002) * 81,207 (2003) * 82,112 (2004–2015) * 86,112 (2016–2018) * 80,126 (2019–Present)


Attendance records

The following are the largest crowds in the history of the stadium.


See also

*
List of NCAA Division I FBS football stadiums This is a list of stadiums that currently serve as the home venue for Football Bowl Subdivision college football teams. These include most of the largest stadiums in the United States. Conference affiliations reflect those in the current 2022 ...


References


External links

*
Official McClendon Center information page


* ttp://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=a526d5e3572f5e95e9a7c25715bf1528 Google 3D Warehouse geo-referenced modelof Memorial Stadium for
Google SketchUp SketchUp is a suite of subscription products that include SketchUp Pro Desktop, a 3D modeling Computer-Aided Design (CAD) program for a broad range of drawing and design applications — including architectural, interior design, industrial and ...
and/or
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at Google 3D Warehouse
Voices of Oklahoma interview with Barry Switzer.
First person interview conducted on August 17, 2009 with Barry Switzer. Original audio and transcript archived wit

{{Oklahoma college football venues College football venues Oklahoma Sooners football University of Oklahoma campus American football venues in Oklahoma Athletics (track and field) venues in Oklahoma Defunct athletics (track and field) venues in the United States Sports venues completed in 1923 Clock towers in Oklahoma 1923 establishments in Oklahoma