History
The previous home of the Tar Heels had been Emerson Field, which had opened in 1916 on the current site of Davis Library. By 1925, it was obvious that that 2,400-seat facility was not adequate for the increasing crowds. Expansion was quickly ruled out since the baseball team also used it, and any new football seats would have been too far away for baseball.
Funding for the stadium was originally supposed to come from alumni donations. William R. Kenan, Jr., a dairy farmer from Lockport, New York who would later become a prominent businessman in Miami, got word of the initial plans and donated a large gift to build the stadium and an adjoining field house. Kenan was an 1894 UNC graduate and grandson of one of UNC's original trustees. He persuaded UNC to build the stadium as a memorial to his parents, William R. Kenan and Mary Hargrave Kenan.
Ground was broken in November 1926. It was completed in August 1927. At the time, it was located on the far southern portion of campus, but expansions over the years have resulted in the stadium now being near the center of campus.
The stadium officially opened on November 12, 1927. The Tar Heels defeated Davidson College 27-0, with the first touchdown in the new stadium by Edison Foard. The first game at Kenan Stadium brought in 9,000 spectators. The stadium was officially dedicated to the Kenan family on Thanksgiving Day in 1927 in front of 28,000 fans, after the Tar Heels beat the Virginia Cavaliers 14-13.
The original stadium - the lower level of the current stadium's sideline seats - seated 24,000 people. However, temporary bleachers were added to the end zones to accommodate overflow crowds, allowing Kenan to accommodate over 40,000 people at times. This happened fairly often over the years, especially during the Choo Choo Justice era of the late 1940s.
Read more about this topic: Kenan Memorial Stadium
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)