Eugene E. Stone III Stadium is a

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

stadium located in

Columbia, South Carolina Columbia is the capital of the U.S. state of South Carolina. With a population of 136,632 at the 2020 census, it is the second-largest city in South Carolina. The city serves as the county seat of Richland County, and a portion of the city ...

on the campus of the University of South Carolina. The 5,000 seat ground is home to the USC Gamecocks soccer teams since 1981, when the Gamecocks started the men's program in 1978. The current grandstand was built in 1996 thanks to a $1 million grant from Eugene E. Stone III, a Carolina graduate. The nickname "the Graveyard" comes from the stadium's proximity to the House of Peace cemetery. The women's team plays in the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...

, while the men's team moves from

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

to the

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams participa ...

effective with the 2022 season. Men's soccer is not sanctioned by the SEC; Carolina and the other SEC men's soccer school,

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

, played in C-USA from 2005 through 2021, and moved together to the Sun Belt in 2022.

External links

Stone Stadium at USC Athletics

Stone Stadium at Google Maps
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eugene E. Stone Iii Stadium (Columbia) South Carolina Gamecocks Soccer venues in South Carolina College soccer venues in the United States Sports venues completed in 1981 South Carolina Gamecocks sports venues 1981 establishments in South Carolina