Davis Wade Stadium - History

History

The stadium was built in 1914 as Scott Field and was named for Don Magruder Scott, an Olympic sprinter and one of the University's first football stars. It originally seated 20,000 fans in what is roughly the lower half of the current facility.

Construction projects in 1936 and 1948 resulted in a concrete grandstand structure with a capacity of 35,000. In 1983, the endzone seating was removed, reducing the capacity to 32,000. A 1986 expansion costing $7.2 million, raised without state budget appropriations, added almost 9,000 seats, consisting primarily of a 5,500-seat upper deck as well as permanent lighting and a computerized scoreboard which was replaced in 1997 with a Sony JumboTron. The Frank Turman Fieldhouse received an additional floor to its facility in 1990. Named the Leo W. Seal M-Club Centre, the addition was named in honor of Leo W. Seal, Sr., a two-year letterwinner at State, is a meeting place for the letterman organization, the M-Club. In 1999, the Turman Fieldhouse underwent numerous changes, including remodeled dressing rooms for both teams, and an all-new recruiting lounge.

In 1999, the stadium began a $50 million expansion and renovation bankrolled by Floyd Davis Wade, Sr., cofounder and director of Aflac, which was completed in 2002. As a result, the stadium was renamed Davis Wade Stadium in his honor in 2000. The playing surface is still known as Scott Field. As part of the project, the stadium was turned into a horseshoe seating 55,082--including 50 skyboxes, 1,700 club-level seats and a second upper deck seating 7,000.

The first Division I-A college football game played post 9-11 was in this stadium between Mississippi State and the South Carolina Gamecocks on September 20, 2001, and broadcast on ESPN.

In Fall 2008, in the south endzone, above the Leo Seal M-Club Centre, construction finished on an all-new $6.1 million 112 ft (34 m) wide by 48 ft (15 m) tall high-definition video display board to replace the JumboTron that was installed in the north endzone in 1997. The LED video system is the second largest high-definition video board in college football behind Godzillatron at the University of Texas's Darrell K Royal Stadium. The new board was used for the first time on November 1, 2008, during the Mississippi State Bulldogs vs. Kentucky Wildcats football game. The main video display is complemented with two high definition LED advertising boards on each side of the main board, as well as a high definition LED "ribbon ticker" which spans the width of the structure below the main board. Therefore, the total video board square footage (on one structure) is 6,896 sq. ft. .

To complement the all-new video system, a new state-of-the-art sound system has been installed by Pro Sound, headquartered in Miami, Florida.

Since October 2009, Davis Wade Stadium has seen twenty-one consecutive sellouts, a stretch of two seasons and an increase in season ticket sales. The stadium's attendance record was broken twice during the 2009 season, including the Florida (57,178) and Alabama (58,103) games. Currently, the Athletic Department, along with Populous, a world-renowned sports architecture firm, are compiling a long-term expansion and renovation plan for Davis Wade Stadium. Current renderings suggest that the stadium could one day hold up to 75,000 spectators. The Athletic Department states that plans are in the very early stages. Major Stadium expansion and renovations are set to begin immediately following the 2012 season.