Michie Stadium is an outdoor
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
U.S. Military Academy
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...
in
West Point, New York
West Point is the oldest continuously occupied military post in the United States. Located on the Hudson River in New York, West Point was identified by General George Washington as the most important strategic position in America during the Ame ...
. The home field for the
Army Black Knights, it opened in 1924 and has a current
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 38,000.
The stadium sits at the upper portion of campus, directly west of
Lusk Reservoir. The field is at an
elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...
of
above sea level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''.
The comb ...
and runs in the traditional north–south configuration, with the press box above the west sideline. Due to the view offered by its location overlooking the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
and the
Neo-Gothic
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
architecture of the campus below, it was rated as ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...
''s #3 sports venue of the 20th century.
Overview
Dennis Michie
Michie Stadium is dedicated to the memory of
Dennis Michie (1870–1898), who was instrumental in starting the football program while a cadet at the Academy. A member of the Class of 1892, Michie organized, managed, and coached the first football team at West Point in 1890. Six years after graduation, he was killed in
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
during the
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (clock ...
. There have been several renovations since the stadium's first game in October 1924, when Army defeated
Saint Louis, 17–0.
Blaik Field
In
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...
, the football field at Michie Stadium was named Blaik Field on September 25, in honor of
Earl "Red" Blaik, West Point's all-time leader in wins during a 17-year tenure from
1941
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
January
* January–August – 10,072 men, women and children with mental and physical disabilities are asphyxiated with carbon monoxide in a gas chamber, at Hadamar Eu ...
to
1958. Blair led Army to three consecutive
national titles from
1944
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 2 – WWII:
** Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in Nor ...
to
1946
Events January
* January 6 - The 1946 North Vietnamese parliamentary election, first general election ever in Vietnam is held.
* January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into f ...
.
Playing surface
Since
2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
, the playing surface has been
FieldTurf. This replaced
AstroPlay, which had been used since
2001
The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...
. The stadium's playing field was natural grass until
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 ...
was installed in
1977
Events January
* January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.
* January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic R ...
.
Army–Navy Game
Michie Stadium first hosted the
Army–Navy Game
The Army–Navy Game is an American college football rivalry game between the Army Black Knights of the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York, and the Navy Midshipmen of the United States Naval Academy (USNA) at Annapo ...
in
1943
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 1 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured.
* January 4 – ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, after it was played at
Thompson Stadium
Robert Means Thompson Stadium was an American football stadium in the eastern United States, located on the campus of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Constructed in 1914, it was the home stadium of the Navy Midshipmen ...
at
Annapolis
Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...
the
year before. Neither Army nor Navy had played at an on-campus facility since very early in the rivalry, since teams' home stadiums are not nearly large enough to accommodate the crowds and media that usually attend the rivalry games. Their rivalry game is normally played at a neutral site between the campuses on the
East Coast
East Coast may refer to:
Entertainment
* East Coast hip hop, a subgenre of hip hop
* East Coast (ASAP Ferg song), "East Coast" (ASAP Ferg song), 2017
* East Coast (Saves the Day song), "East Coast" (Saves the Day song), 2004
* East Coast FM, a ra ...
, usually in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
in early December. In 2020, the Army–Navy Game was moved from Philadelphia to Michie Stadium due to state-imposed attendance limits on outdoor events as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
.
Attendance Records
Gallery
Image:MichieStadiumPressbox.JPG, Hoffman Press Box overlooks Blaik Field at Michie Stadium
Image:MichieStadiumTeamEntrance.jpg, The Black Knights enter Michie Stadium on game day
File:Michie Stadium at night.jpg, Michie Stadium from across the reservoir
File:Michie Stadium South.jpg, 2008 – View Looking South into Hudson Valley
File:Michie Stadium North.jpg, 2008 – View Looking North into Hudson Valley
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
World Stadiums.com- photos - Michie Stadium
{{New York college football venues
Army Black Knights football
Army Black Knights men's lacrosse
College football venues
College lacrosse venues in the United States
American football venues in New York (state)
Lacrosse venues in New York (state)
Sports venues in Orange County, New York
Sports venues completed in 1924
1924 establishments in New York (state)