Salem Stadium is a stadium in Salem, Virginia, USA. It is primarily used for American football and hosts the home football games of the Salem High School Spartans. It was built in 1985 and seats 7,157 people. The stadium is part of the James E. Taliaferro Sports and Entertainment Complex (named after a former mayor of Salem), which also includes the Salem Civic Center and the Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium.
Salem Stadium has hosted the NCAA Division III national football championship game, known as the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl since 1993. In 2007, the natural grass playing surface was replaced by FieldTurf in part to ensure that the Stagg Bowl continues to be played in Salem. The field was named the Willis White Field in honor of the former head football coach at Salem High School. Salem Stadium also currently hosts the Virginia High School League football state championships in Group A and the Southwestern Virginia Educational Classic, an annual contest between two football teams from historically black colleges and universities.
Salem Stadium was intended to be the home field of the minor league football Virginia Swarm (then known as the Virginia Senators) of the United National Gridiron League for the 2009 season with the first game scheduled for May 17. However, on April 28, Salem was informed by league officials the UNGL was suspending operations for the 2009 season.
Famous quotes containing the words salem, football and/or stadium:
“without luggage or defenses,
giving up my car keys and my cash,
keeping only a pack of Salem cigarettes
the way a child holds on to a toy.
I signed myself in where a stranger
puts the inked-in X’s”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“In this dream that dogs me I am part
Of a silent crowd walking under a wall,
Leaving a football match, perhaps, or a pit,
All moving the same way.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)