User:Dcheagle/OU Stadium

The Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium (also known as Owen Field or The Palace on the Prairie) is the on-campus football facility for the University of Oklahoma Sooners in Norman, Oklahoma. The official seating capacity of the stadium, following recent renovations, is 82,112, making it the 15th largest college stadium in the United States and the second largest in the Big 12 Conference (behind Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas).

The record attendance for the stadium was set during a 2012 home game against Notre Dame, with 86,031 in attendance.

The stadium is the site of Spring Commencement exercises for the university.

The stadium is a horseshoe-shaped facility with its long axis oriented north/south, with the north end enclosed and the south end partially enclosed. Visitor seating is in the south end zone and the southern sections of the east side. The student seating sections are in the east stands, surrounding the 350-member Pride of Oklahoma which sits in section 29, between the 20- and 35-yard lines. The Sooners' bench was once located on the east side with the students, but the home bench was moved to the west side in the mid-1990s.

Origins and construction
In 1895 the first football team fielded by the University of Oklahoma played on the prairie where the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art now sits. Later teams played 100 yards to the east of the first field both of which were unnamed. Starting in 1905 the first season with Bennie Owen as head coach, Boyd Field was built just west of present day McCasland Field House. Boyd field had a 500 seat grandstand surrounded by a thick Bois d'Arc hedge that was the bane of little boys trying to watch the game without paying admission. The team played games there till 1923 when they moved to the current stadium site.

Starting in 1921 university students started a movement calling for the construction of a student union, the following year Norman's YMCA burned down and its officials joined the students in the push for a student union. Since a new stadium was also needed the board of regents in 1925 appointed trustees for a combined stadium/union memorial fund. The first site choice for the stadium/union was an orchard west across Asp street from Boyd field. The first game played at the current stadium site was in 1923, prior to the start of the stadium/union plan, with the Sooners prevailing over Washington University 62–7. The first stadium on the current site had 500 seats on the east side. In 1925 the west side stands were constructed from red tiles, brick and reinforced concrete and brought the stadium capacity to 16,000. With this addition the stadium was named Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in honor of students and University personnel who were killed during World War I. The west stands were built at a cost of approximately $293,000. and coach Bennie Owen himself helped raise the money. To honor Owen, the playing surface was named Owen Field during the 1920s. (The stadium is popularly called Owen Field, but in actuality the field and the stadium are two separate objects with two separate names. The tongue twistingly awkward formal reference is to say that a game is played in Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium at Owen Field).

First series of expansions (1929-1975)
In 1929 permanent seating was added to the east side adding 16,000 seats bringing the stadiums capacity to 32,000. In 1948, the north end of the stadium was enclosed, the playing area was lowered six feet which allowed for the addition of 7,500, and the running track around the field was moved to the site of present day John Jacobs Field. A press box was also added during the 1948 expansion the stadiums capacity when completed was 55,647. In 1957 the stadium was expanded again with the addition of the south end bleachers which brought capacity to just under 61,836 seats. AstroTurf replaced the natural grass field in 1970. The west side upper deck was added in 1975, featuring a lounge and a new press box, for a total capacity of 71,187 fans at a cost of about $5.7 million.

1994 master plan
In June of 1994 the OU Board of Regents approved a stadium master plan. The fourteen year old AstroTurf was replaced in 1994 with natural grass with improved field drainage system also being installed. Construction began in April 1995 on nine west side suites which was completed by the end of year. The next improvements came in 1997 when permanent stadium lighting were installed allowing night game, the installation of a new scoreboard and video screen. In 1998 the stadiums capacity decreased 72,765 to allow for more wheelchair seating. 1999 saw the addition of the Barry Switzer Center which includes sports medicine facility with the latest equipment and technology; the Robin Siegfried and Family Strength and Conditioning Facility; new locker rooms; new coaches offices; the Anderson All-American Plaza and the OU Touchdown Club Legends Lobby under the south side seating area.

21st-century improvements
By 1999, the 75-year-old stadium was showing its age. Except for the turf and lighting enhancements, no substantial upgrade of the stadium had occurred since the press box was built 25 years earlier, in 1975. The OU College of Architecture was housed under the west stands and in the north end zone, until other facilities became available in 1990. The artificial turf on Owen Field had literally become threadbare before its replacement in 1981; it is possible that the poor condition of the Superturf, prior to its 1994 replacement, contributed to a crash of the Sooner Schooner during a 1993 game against Colorado. The east side of the stadium still had the original dirt flooring underneath the stands, making for a cloudy, dusty walk into the student and visitor seating sections. Restrooms were old and inadequate; paint was peeling off external walls and the areas under the stands (the east side in particular) were dark and smelled like dust.

Plans began in 1997 to upgrade most athletic department facilities, beginning with a five-year fundraising campaign. Then, unexpectedly, the Sooners won the BCS National Championship for the 2000 season. The university began to get more freshman applications than it could house due in large part to the football team's success. Along with other campus improvements such as more and better student housing, the refurbishment and expansion plan for the stadium was accelerated to be ready by the beginning of the 2003 season.

In 2002, every seat in the stadium was replaced and the north end zone scoreboard was dismantled in preparation for replacement. From 2003 to 2004, the entire video and audio systems were replaced and new video scoreboards were placed at both end zones. The west side, long ignored except for the press box construction in 1975, received restroom and concession improvements. Most importantly, a street running east of the east stands was moved to allow for the construction of an upper deck with club seating for 2,500 and 27 suites on the east side, which increased the capacity of the stadium to its current figure of 82,112. The renovation, led by architecture firms 360 Architecture and HOK Sport, cost $54 million.

The north and west entries were renovated to match the Cherokee Gothic look of most campus buildings, and other cosmetic enhancements were made to the press box. A reflecting pool just north of the stadium, filled in during the 1949 north end zone expansion, was restored in 2000. A new war memorial, listing the names of Sooners killed while serving in the U.S. armed forces, was placed next to the reflecting pool in 2003. The Barry Switzer Center, under the south end zone, was opened in 1999 and houses the football locker room, video rooms, football coaches offices, the football conditioning center, a state-of-the-art sports medicine facility, and the Legends Lobby, a large museum dedicated to the history of Oklahoma football.

The basketball coaches' offices are located in the Lloyd Noble Center, but the rest of the OU athletic coaches' offices, the Athletic Director's office, and the OU Athletics administrators' offices are located in the north end of the stadium in the McClendon Center.

$12 million toward the $75 million cost of the stadium project was donated by Christy Gaylord Everest, current publisher of The Oklahoman and daughter of Edward K. Gaylord, in 2002. The stadium was renamed to its current name in honor of this gift. (The Gaylords donated a total of $50 million to the university around this time, including $22 million for a new building to house the College of Journalism.)

In a February 2007 radio interview, OU Athletic Director Joe Castiglione said that a new stadium master plan was in development. Castiglione spoke about replacing the press box and expanding the south end zone seating but gave no timetable or other details. In March 2007, the OU Board of Regents approved an Athletic Department request for $10.3 million to replace the displays and the sound systems of both the stadium and the Lloyd Noble Center.

The improvements include the installation of a state-of-the-art Daktronics 16mm HD-ready video replay board in the north end zone, which replaced an older matrix messageboard, and digital 23mm LED ribbon displays along the edges of both upper decks, the north end zone, and the north tunnel entrances. Eight new concession stands were added, along with more than 60 new toilets in the women's restrooms, 30 new water fountains, handrails on all aisles of the upper decks, new speakers in all restrooms, and a new public address system. Phase two replaced the obsolete displays and sound system of the Lloyd Noble Center. The final phase was completed prior to the 2008 season and included replacement of the stadium's south scoreboard and sound system within the existing structure. The new displays are compatible with high-definition television equipment, although no HD cameras were purchased during the project.

2014 master plan
The stadiums master plan that was developed in 1994 and updated in 2000 was updated again in October 2013 by Kansas City, Missouri based architecture firm Populous who developed the original plan and the 2000 update. The updated master plan was presented to the Board of Regents as a information only no action required meeting agenda on October 23, 2013.

On May 4, 2014 KWTV's Dean Blevins broke the news that the University of Oklahoma had approved a stadium expansion plan and it would be announced at a future Board of Regents meeting. At a June 25 meeting the Board of Regents approved a proposal to proceed with the development of plans and projects for a major renovation and modernization of the stadium, development will be subject to ongoing review and approval by the Board of Regents. The estimated $370 million cost will be funded solely by private fundraising. Among the changes the most noticeable will be the south end zone which will be connected to the east and west stands to form a continuous bowl around the stadium, and a completely reconstructed press box. With the restructured south stands the Barry Switzer Center will receive a major redevelopment resulting in nearly 50,000 square feet of new space for student-athletes, athletic offices will also be moved from the north stands to a wing in the new south stands allowing the older offices to be converted for academic use. The South stands will be topped with a new 8,750-square foot state of the art video board. Other improvements include a new stadium lighting system to replace the current aging system, expanded concourses and fan cooling rooms, 16 moving stairways and 18 new elevators, expanded weight rooms, and other various architectural updates. On March 10, 2015 OU Board of Regents approved phase one of the stadium expansion, Phase one which will only involve a portion of the 2014 masters plan will cost $160 million. The majority of phase one will cover the expansion of the south end zone connecting it with the east and west stands, other projects in phase one include new locker room, strength and conditioning room, training room, nutrition center, meeting rooms and coaches offices. OU Athletics Director Joe Castiglione expects construction to begin in four to five weeks on the new training rooms.

Attendance Records
The following are the largest crowds in the history of the stadium: