Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
- Oklahoma Sooners (NCAA ) (since 1923)
The Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium is a football stadium on the campus of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. It serves as the venue for home games of the college teams Oklahoma Sooners. The stadium has a capacity of 82 112. The attendance record of 85,646 was set in a game against the Texas Tech University in 2008.
History
The first game at the current site of the stadium was discharged in 1923, when the Sooners against the Washington University won with 62-7. As 1925 16.000 permanent seats were built on the west side of the site, the stadium was named Oklahoma Memorial Stadium after, in honor of the students and staff of the University who died during the First World War. The construction costs were approximately $ 293,000 and coach Bennie Owen himself helped raise the money. To honor his efforts, the playing field is named after Owen Field.
1929 have also been added on the east side permanent seats. In 1949 the North side of the stadium was closed, lowered the playing surface to 2 m and a career was built around the game field. The audience capacity was now 55,000. Additional seats increase this further in 1957 to 62,000 at the end zone south. 1970, the natural grass was replaced with artificial turf. On the west side of 1975, a top deck press box and box seats were added and finally brought the capacity to 71,187. Apart from the playing surface and lighting system, this was the last expansion for over 25 years.
Around the turn of the millennium was the 75 -year-old stadium in a bad condition. In 2000, the Sooners won the national championship once again and as a result a comprehensive renovations of $ 54 million was made. Among other things, all the seats were replaced and installed new video and audio systems. The capacity increased again to 82 112 today. In addition to the stadium and some new facilities were built. Of the total cost of USD 75 million, 12 million of Christy Gaylord Everest, the editor of the newspaper, The Oklahoman, donated. The stadium was then renamed in her honor.