Stadium of the Week: Notre Dame (The Stadium, Batch One)

Hello Stadium Fans (Those of you still with us):

Notre Dame Stadium, where they "shake down the thunder from the sky" (now that you have to admit is intimidating, kind of Biblical), was constructed in 1930 when Head Coach Knute Rockne was in his prime. The profits the program had made during a rather so-so 1928 season had totaled over $500,000, a sum Rockne wanted to use to build a gargantuan arena to replace old Cartier Field (capacity 30,000). Cartier was just north of the present stadium, in the mall area leading to today's Hesburgh Library (Touchdown Jesus). However, Father O'Donnell, President of the University, a typically conservative Holy Cross priest, did not want to put the university in debt over a stadium. Rockne "resigned " over this issue (a tactic he employed several times) as a negotiating ploy. (Reminiscent of the comment, "Countess Dumarche has committed suicide."  "What! Again?") Rockne got his stadium and O'Donnell commanded the financing plan, which included selling seating rights to the best prime locations for a ten year period (Cost:  $3,000 between the 45's, and down from there.) Over $150,000 was raised from O'Donnell's seating sales. (See #1096,  the photo of a large poster in the Bookstore that clearly shows the Stadium planted on the Midwest plains.)

Rockne was involved in every aspect of the stadium design. He favored the simplistic bowl concept at Michigan, but he wanted it smaller, as ND was, and is, a much smaller school. He selected the firm of Osborn Engineering out of Cleveland because they had designed Michigan Stadium as well as Yankee Stadium and Comiskey Park. His major alterations were in the location of the entrance tunnel and narrowing the amount of space between the field and the stands. Already there had started to be legions of Irish supporters who planted themselves in the bench area with the team, and he wanted to eliminate that. That is why even today the sideline stands are close to the field, which is really better for their visibility.( Note the narrow team sideline spaces in #1309 and 1360.) The field was slightly lowered in the 1996 renovations, and that increased the height of the first row over the field, a good move. (By the way, sod from the old Cartier Field was transplanted to Notre Dame Stradium.) Note the boxes of gold mums that are placed in the area between the first row and the sidelines.

Rockne even oversaw the layout of the streets and the parking plan for the Stadium. What he drew remained in use until the 1996 renovations. Now that is a man after my own stadium-loving heart.

Notre Dame Stadium was built pretty much over six months, to get it done in time for the 1930 season, with the workers putting in five ten-hour days and one six-hour day on Saturday. The average wage was one dollar a day plus lunch. An unusually cold winter in 1929-30 delayed much of the  work until April, 1930.

The original capacity was 54,000 and the final cost was about $750,000. That official capacity was gradually raised over the years to the familiar 59,075, but no seats were added. How they managed that was by narrowing the seat size from 18" to 17"! This was during the Depression and World War II when Americans were getting thinner.

The first game in the Stadium was with SMU. Note that Pony fans! The Irish slipped by 20-14 on October 4, 1930. SMU and the Irish had a number of important memorable games through the years, including a 59-6 shellacking the year after the SMU death penalty, 1989. SMU leaders wanted very much for the program participants to go to South Bend despite the anticipated slaughter to experience how a clean, iconic program operates.

EXPANSION.

    Notre Dame Stadium has only been expanded physically, without redefining butt size, once, in 1996. After years of debate and soul-searching , the Alumni Organization and the Board of Trust decided that the enormous demand for tickets and the growth of the sport nationally required them to increase their capacity. However, they insisted in doing it in the least obtrusive, most tradition-respective manner possible, with attention being paid to "aesthetics, logistics, community relations and communications." The issue drew out passionate feelings on all sides, because many alums did not want to change such a powerful physical symbol of the program. One specific hot point was what the increased size would due to the view of the  gigantic figure of Jesus on the side of the Hesburgh Library that was clearly visible from most seats. The uplifted arms of Christ on The Word of Life mural caused the Figure to be loyally called "Touchdown Jesus" (spoken with a cynical sneer by opponents.) As popular as this mural and Irish symbol is, it should be noted that it was only put there in 1964, so it is not some long-standing element from the mists of Notre Dame past.

Note photos #1336, 1340, 1345, 1349, 1351, 1357   that demonstrate how presently one can only see Touchdown Jesus from certain places in the Stadium, but from many perspectives the scoreboard blocks the view. From the Student Side (Remember my definition: the Student Side is the side opposite the Press Box, whether the students sit there or not) patrons can see the Golden Dome and the Basilica Spire. More intimidation. Jesus, the Dome, the Basilica. Visiting teams are condemned as heretics before kickoff.

The expansion carefully added seats simply around the top of the bowl, enlarging the arena upward and outward. A second set of entry portals was added in the upper ring to accommodate the top tier. The expansion increased the capacity to 80,795. ND has played to a sold out crowd every game since 1966, except one. The one time there were a few empty seats was at the Air Force game in 1973, when TV screwed it up by a last minute move to Thanksgiving Day when the students of course were gone. That day there were only 57,235.

Actually, ND did play the seat size game again, because the official capacity in 1996 after the expansion was listed as 80,225. Two years later they used a computer model to redesign the seating plan,  but this time it went down, to accommodate the increased bottom width of increasingly fat, overweight. slothful Americans. The official line went down to 80,012. However they must have missed that revenue because they redesigned it again in 2000 to go back up to 80,232. This was all done without changing nary a seat, because, as I shall dwell upon later, with the exception of the seven rows of chairback seats for the Big Donors, all seats in Notre Dame Stadium are bench seats -wooden, no backs!! The seating spaces can be repositioned at will!

A few sideline bleachers that had been removed for the 1996 expansion were put back in the field level corners to bring the total to the 80,795 in 2001. And there it has remained, waiting upon the next revision due to the Obesity Crisis in America.

The new upper ring necessitated a new exterior around the bowl, so it was added on using the same tannish brick and concrete as before. The old veneer is still there, inside the new outer ground level ring. Coaches who won National Championships with Irish teams get their names on gates through this new exterior, and statues as well. Photos #1134, 1135, 1137, 1140, 1141.

 So, 278 of the last 361 games at The Stadium have been sellouts. They became the norm in 1966 when Ara Parseghian ramped up the win-loss ratio. Counting this year, in twenty five of the 83 seasons in The Stadium, the team went undefeated at home.

SIMPLICITY.

The overall effect of The Stadium is it's utter simplicity, a very basic bowl with no quirks, as it was all built at once, a perfectly symmetrical round house. No add on oddities as at LSU, no towering upper decks as at Texas, no grotesque additions as at A&M. They made doubly sure that the added upper tier blended in perfectly with the original bowl. In the ground level photos taken from The Tunnel, (in the last message) it is very easy, since there are no people blocking the way,  to see how the addition was added. Boring even, no drama, no memorable, unique design features. It was built to house spectators who were there to focus on the game being played on the field. What do you think of when you think of Notre Dame Stadium, when you do think of Notre Dame Stadium? Touchdown Jesus, right, (which is not even in The Stadium),  the winning streaks, the many great teams, the Four Horsemen? The Stadium is so ultimately plain, you do not think about it,  and that is part and parcel of the major point I wish to make about The Notre Dame Experience. (See the shots of the full field, #1233, 1294, 1346.)

That is in Part Two.

(Proceed to the next post)