Home Stadium
The Yellow Jackets play their home games at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field in Atlanta, Georgia. Upon his hiring in 1904, John Heisman insisted that the Institute acquire its own football field. Grant Field was constructed to appease Heisman as well as bring a true home field advantage to Tech football.
From 1893–1912, the team used area parks such as Brisbane Park, Ponce de Leon Park, and Piedmont Park as the home field. Georgia Tech took out a seven-year lease on what is now the southern end of Grant Field, although the land was not adequate for sports, due to its unleveled, rocky nature. In 1905, Heisman had 300 convict laborers clear rocks, remove tree stumps, and level out the field for play; Tech students then built a grandstand on the property. The land was purchased by 1913, and John W. Grant donated $15,000 towards the construction of the field's first permanent stands; the field was named Grant Field in honor of the donor's deceased son, Hugh Inman Grant.
The stadium now sits amongst a unique urban skyline and is the oldest Division I FBS football stadium. In fact, the only Division I stadiums older are Franklin Field at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Stadium. Grant Field was natural grass until 1971. The astroturf was replaced by grass in 1995. The stadium officially holds 55,000 but has held up to 56,412 in 2005 and 56,680 in 2006.
Read more about this topic: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Football
Famous quotes containing the words home and/or stadium:
“Parents offer an open womb. More than anyone else in your life, mothers, and sometimes fathers, can kiss it, and make it well when their grown children need to regress and repair. More than anyone else in your life, mothers, and sometimes fathers, can catch you when you start to fall. When you are in disgrace, defeat, and despair, home may be the safest place to hide.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“It’s no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the Yankee Stadium of ancient times.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)