Tiger Stadium
Tiger Stadium
College football in all its glory has no finer home than Tiger
Stadium, known throughout America as "Death Valley." As recently as
last year, Tiger Stadium was named the most dreaded road playing
site in America in a poll of coaches conducted by Gannett News
Service. A 1987 College Football Association poll of the nation's
Division I-A head coaches determined the same thing. And a 1989 poll
by The Sporting News simply rated Tiger Stadium No. 1 among "The 10
best places to attend a college football game."
Indeed, Tiger Stadium is legendary in college football circles for
its raucous and rollicking crowds
and for uncountable memories that have been spawned in this mammoth
structure. Perhaps the
most famous moment in Death Valley history took place on "The Night
The Tigers Moved the
Earth," October 8, 1988. It was on that night, when Tommy Hodson
threw to Eddie Fuller for a
winning touchdown against Auburn, that the explosion of the crowd
was so thunderous that it
caused an earth tremor that registered on a seismograph meter in
LSU's Geology Department
across campus.
Then there was the night the Tigers nearly upset No. 1-ranked
Southern Cal before a sellout
crowd on September 28, 1979. The Tigers came up short, but the crowd
roared from kickoff to
final gun in a game that many ardent LSU followers rank as the
loudest in stadium history.
And of course there was Halloween night, 1959, when Billy Cannon
made his famous 89-yard
punt return to lead No. 1 LSU past No. 3 Ole Miss. Legend has it
that families living near the
campus lakes came running out of their homes in fear of the noise
erupting around them. Those are the highlights, some of the moments
which shaped the character of this great stadium. But week in and
week out each fall, a new chapter unfolds in the story of Death
Valley.
The home of one of football's proudest traditions, this unique
structure also once served as a
dormitory for approximately 1,500 students, and while LSU's athletic
dormitory (Broussard Hall)
was being renovated during the fall of 1986, the LSU football
players lived in Tiger Stadium. The
original phase of construction was completed in 1924. This first
phase included the East and West
stands, which seated about 12,000. Four years later (1928), the
sides were extended upward to
accommodate an additional 10,000 fans, raising the capacity to
22,000. In 1936, the stadium
seating capacity was increased to 46,000 with the addition of 24,000
seats in the North end,
making Tiger Stadium into a horseshoe configuration. The next phase
of construction took place in
1953, when the stadium's South end was closed to turn the horseshoe
into a bowl, increasing the
seating capacity to 67,720.
The upper deck atop the West stands was completed in 1978, and it
added 8,000 seats to the
stadium's capacity. Additional seating in two club level sections,
which flanked the existing press
box, brought the total addition to approximately 10,000 seats and
raised the stadium's capacity to
approximately 78,000. Refurbishing began on the stadium in the
summer of 1985, when the East
and West stands were waterproofed, and 25,000 chairback seats were
added to replace the older "bench" type seats. Another phase of
improvements was completed in 1987, when the North and South stands
were waterproofed and newer bleachers were once again installed to
replace the older ones. The playing field was moved 11 feet to the
South in 1986, to provide more room between the back line of the
North end zone and the curvature of the stadium fence which
surrounds the field. It also put the playing area in the exact
center of the arena's grassy surface. The Tiger Stadium press box
was redecorated prior to the 1987 season, and a few more seats were
installed at the upper portion of the West lower stands. Also, the
stadium's seating arrangement was renumbered prior to the 1987
season, to make all seats a uniform size. The addition of bleacher
seating in 1988 brought the capacity to 80,150 and the elimination
of some bleacher seating after the 1994 season to accommodate
renovated visiting team dressing facilities brought the capacity to
its current total of 79,940.
Taken from the Athletic Department Website
© 1999