Kenan Stadium
Kenan Stadium
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Carolina football plays its home games at Kenan Memorial Stadium, one of the most picturesque athletic venues in America. The Tar Heels have called Kenan Stadium home since 1927 and the thrill of playing in or attending a game there is as exhilirating now as it was when it was first constructed.
Own Your Own Kenan Stadium sculpture of extraordinary realism...meticulously detailed and skillfully hand painted.
- With its majestic setting and scenic charm, Kenan Memorial Stadium has long been considered among the finest places to watch a college football game. It is home of the North Carolina Tar HeelsÆ, a team that has made appearances in more than 20 bowl games.
- Officially licensed by the University of North CarolinaÆ at Chapel Hill, this magnificent sculpture features extraordinary accuracy and fine detail.
- From the picturesque playing field and stands to the tall pine trees surrounding the stadium's exterior, every aspect of this hallowed college gridiron is exactingly reproduced.
- Superbly crafted and carefully hand painted by skilled artisans, the sculpture comes mounted on a handsome display base.
- Actual size approximately 12" long x 10" wide.
Order Your Own
Kenan StadiumThe stadium's beauty, charm and simple elegance have not been diminished with the recent expansion project that added nearly 8,000 seats, a state-of-the-art football facility, chancellor's box and preferred seating box. The renovation and expansion project, financed through a combination of private contributions through the Educational Foundation and bonded indebtedness from the athletic department through the sale of revenue-generating bonds, is in its fourth year. The Educational Foundation and its members have committed more than $43 million to the project. This summer, nearly 2,000 permanent seats were installed in the lower level of the stadium in the west end zone. That brings stadium capacity to 60,000.
Nestled among the tall pine trees near the center of the Carolina campus is Kenan Stadium. It is here in this natural valley that Tar Heel football teams have played for 68 years.
Kenan Stadium is generally regarded as one of the most beautiful football venues in the nation. Considering its majestic setting among the Carolina pines, many say it is the most beautiful.
One national sports magazine rated Kenan one of the five best places in America to watch a college football game. For scenery, atmosphere and charm, it cannot be surpassed.
The stadium has been expanded several times since its completion in 1927. In each instance, though, great care was taken to keep its fundamental beauty intact.
The latest addition to the stadium is a new playing field, installed in the spring of 1995. The new turf includes an improved drainage system beneath the field that drains through the field itself rather than off the sides of the field as in the past.
The most recent stadium expansion took place prior to 1988 and involved adding 2,000 choice seats between the 40-yard lines where the press box and chancellor's box formerly stood.
A new press box was constructed on top of the upper deck on the stadium's south side. It is a one-level elongated structure, running from 10-yard line to 10-yard line. It is one of the finest facilities of its kind in the nation.
Also part of the project were a permanent lighting system, a chancellor's lounge on the north side of the field and a football lettermen's lounge on the south side. The lights are part of a General Electric low-mount system which minimizes the height of the lightpoles. A similar system is used at Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears.
Cost of the entire project was $7 million. It was funded by private gifts and bonds.
"Kenan Stadium is aesthetically a very special sports arena and a great deal of thought was given to these improvements," says Athletic Director John Swofford. "Their aim is to maintain and even enhance the beauty of the stadium."
William Rand Kenan Jr. deserves the credit for originally making the stadium a part of the University. He was born in North Carolina in 1873 and graduated from Carolina in 1894. An international industrialist, Kenan discovered carbide and made monumental progress in the field of chemistry. During his business career he was President of The Florida East Coast Railroad, The Florida East Coast Hotel Company, The West Palm Beach Water Company and the Florida East Coast Car Ferry Company.
He was a director of Florida Power and Light Company and built the first power plant in Miami in the early 1900s.
The stadium was built as a memorial to his parents, William R. Kenan and Mary Hargrave Kenan. Construction began in November 1926 and was completed the following August. Complete cost of the stadium and accompanying fieldhouse was $303,000.
Originally, the stadium was to be built through funds raised by alumni donations and by June 1926, a group of nearly 40 alumni had contributed $27,926. At this time, however, a copy of the prospectus and plan of financing the stadium came into the hands of Mr. Kenan who expressed an interest in the proposal. Kenan was considering establishing a memorial to his parents and the pressing need for a stadium and the possibilities of the beauty, dignity and permanence it presented, suggested to him that the benefaction he contemplated may well take the form of a memorial stadium. The Stadium Committee immediately endorsed his proposal and on the very day in November 1926 on which Kenan visited the planned site, he announced his financial gift to build the stadium.
Mr. Kenan remained very interested in Kenan Stadium throughout his lifetime. In the 1950s he gave a $1,000,000 contribution to construct a second deck on the stadium. After Mr. Kenan's death in 1965 the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust, which was established by his will, donated $1,000,000 to enlarge and modernize Kenan Fieldhouse.
In 1988 the Kenan Trust made another $1,000,000 gift to complete the new chancellor's box on the North Side. Another lasting memory of William R. Kenan Jr. is the Kenan Athletic Scholarship Endowment valued at over $1,000,000. Each year a student athlete is awarded a full scholarship from this fund.
Besides giving the stadium to the University, Mr. Kenan also sponsored and financed the famous Kenan Professorships. He was awarded the honorary degree of LL.D. by his alma mater in 1944.
In the first game played there, Carolina defeated Davidson, 27-0, on November 12, 1927.
The most points scored by the Tar Heels in Kenan came in the third game played there as Carolina whipped Wake Forest, 65-0, in the 1928 season opener.
As originally built, the stadium seated 24,000. However, in 1963 the benefactor added portable stands and then an upper deck to the permanent stands, which increased capacity to 48,000. That was expanded to 50,000 in 1979 and then to 52,000 in 1988.
After the 1976 season, Kenan Fieldhouse underwent a massive renovation. The building was expanded to 30,000 square feet of dressing rooms, coaches' offices, lounges, meeting rooms, weight-training quarters and other facilities. The players' lockerroom was renovated again in 1988.
The Student-Athlete Development Center was added to the fieldhouse in 1986. A 20,000 square foot building, it is a one-of-a-kind facility.
For study purposes, it contains a language lab, video room, computer lab, theatre-style lecture hall, several reading rooms and numerous tutorial rooms. Carolina's academic counseling staff has the advantage of using the most modern techniques in helping student-athletes with their studies.
The bottom half of the building encompasses one of the most complete strength fitness centers in the country. Workout rooms and performance labs contain the most current apparatus available.
Capacity crowds have come to be expected at Kenan. The highest attendance at a game there was the crowd of 54,300 which viewed Carolina defeat rival N.C. State, 31-17 in 1994. That topped the previous high of 54,100 which saw the 13th-ranked Tar Heels play host to number-one rated Florida State in 1993.
The 1983 season saw another first in the stadium - a game played under artificial lights. The Carolina-Duke game was played in the late afternoon so it could be televised throughout the Atlantic Coast Conference area. Portable lights were brought in since the second half was played after sunset. Portable lights were also used in the 1987 Clemson game which was televised nationally by ESPN.
The 1991 season opener versus Cincinnati and the Clemson game, which was televised nationally by ESPN, were the first true night games ever played at Kenan Stadium. A total of seven night games have been played since the lights were installed, including the season-opening win over Texas Christian in 1994.
The stadium has been expanded several times since its completion in 1927. In each instance, though, great care was taken to keep its fundamental beauty intact. The addition of the Frank H. Kenan Football Center and the North Side Stadium Preferred Seating Box have further enhanced the stadium's status as a campus landmark.
The Kenan Football Center is one of the most impressive structures of its kind in the country. The four-level structure houses the Carolina football program, including the coaches' offices, locker rooms, weight room, training room, equipment room, players' lounge, computer labs and study areas, academic coordinator's office, 100-plus seat auditorium, theater and Hall of Honor.
The Hall of Honor, located on the ground floor, is a multi-media history of Carolina football. Photographs, awards, trophies and artifacts detailing the rich and storied history of the sport in Chapel Hill are on display. The 17 Carolina players who have been honored by placing their names and numbers on display in the stadium are also featured in the Hall of Honor. Special plaques, flags and an audio- visual presentation on each player are highlighted.
The James A. Heavner Theater was made possible by a special gift by the executive producer of the Tar Heels Sports Network and president of Vilcom. The theater is a 30-person mini-theater equipped with surround sound and seven dramatic videos presenting the history of UNC football.
A number of rooms in the Kenan Football Center have been dedicated in the honor or memory of Carolina's benefactors, fans and athletic personalities. They include the Brinkley Lounge, the fourth floor reception area named for Harvey M. Brinkley Jr.; the Don McCauley/Paul Miller Head Coach's Suite; the Norman M. (Buddy) Black Jr. Lounge, the fourth floor hospitality area; the Oscar Davenport/Chris Keldorf Quarterback Meeting Room as given by Bob Biggerstaff; the Jo Allison Clary Smith Weight Room; the Carolina Football Players' Locker Room, named in behalf of the more than 400 former Tar Heels who donated more than $2 million to the project; Koury Box North, box seating on the north side of the stadium named for Maurice J. Koury; the John W. Pope Academic Support Facility; the John W. Pope Stadium Box, a stadium box on the north side; and the John W. Swofford Auditorium.
The expansion project, in which great care was taken to ensure that the surrounding environment would be altered as little as possible, ties the north and south concourses to either end of the lower deck via the third level of the Kenan Center, making fan movement around the stadium much easier.
The new football center is named in honor of the late Frank H. Kenan, one of the school's most generous benefactors. Kenan was a Durham resident and chief executive officer of Kenan Transport Company in Chapel Hill. He passed away at the age of 83 in June 1996.
Source: University of North Carolina Sports Information Office July 7, 1999
Darrell Lucus
Chief on-campus reporter, Inside Carolina magazineKenan Memorial Stadium--better known as "The Tar Pit"--has been the home of Carolina football since 1927. When I first went to a Carolina football game in 1993, I found it hard to believe that it's one of the oldest stadiums in the nation and the second oldest in the ACC (behind only Georgia Tech's Bobby Dodd Stadium). From the outside, the place looks more like it was built in the mid-60s--an impression that hasn't changed since I started going to Carolina in 1996.
Although Kenan has aged gracefully, it may stand as a memorial to how slow Carolina alumni have been to adopt to change. Until a five-year renovation effort brought Kenan to its present capacity of 60,000, it looked like an overgrown high school stadium. The only reason it might have been on the list of the most beautiful stadiums in the nation might be because it's hidden in a lush patch of trees near the geographic center of campus.
Kenan was built in 1927 as a result of Carolina football's increasing popularity (yes, there actually was a time when Carolina wasn't a basketball school). At the time, Tar Heel football was one of the South's best-kept secrets (no thanks to a prohibition on bowl games by the Southern Conference--Carolina's home from 1921-53). As many as 16,000 people jammed into 2,400-seat Emerson Field. Expanding Emerson was out of the question because it also hosted the Tar Heel baseball team, and any new football seats would have been terrible for baseball.
Miami industrialist William R. Kenan, Jr. (Carolina 1894) got word of the new plans and suggested the stadium serve as a memorial to his parents. He gave the bulk of the $303,000 used to build the original stadium -- the current lower sideline seats--and an adjacent fieldhouse.
Originally, Kenan seated 24,000. However, in case of overflow crowds, temporary bleachers were added to the end zones--something that happened fairly often in the next 23 years, especially during the Choo Choo Justice era in the late 40s.
You'd think Kenan might have been expanded during the Justice era, but it didn't happen until 1963. That year, the sideline seats were double-decked and bleachers were permanently added to the end zones, doubling Kenan's capacity to 48,000. A seating adjustment in 1979 increased capacity to 50,000. In 1988, the old press box and chancellor's box were torn down. In their place were 2,000 seats between the 40s, increasing capacity to 52,000.
All those, however, paled before the 1995-98 renovation. In 1995, a new field with a better drainage system was installed. After the 1995 season, the bleacher seats in the west end zone were torn down to make way for the Frank H. Kenan Football Center, a combination headquarters and memorabillia complex. Completed in time for the 1997 season, the Kenan Center has drawn raves as one of the best in the nation--a big step from the cramped facilities of Kenan Fieldhouse. Included in the new center were 8,000 new seats in the west end zone and a concourse connecting the north and south stands, turning the stadium into a horseshoe. Only 6,000 of the new seats were available for 1997 due to state law. What was available in 1997 was a "preferred seating box"--Carolina's lone concession to an age in which stadiums seem to cater to fat cats more than the common fans. The 2,000 remaining seats in the west end zone were added in 1998, bringing the stadium to its current capacity of 60,000.
No matter how many seats it's had, the Tar Pit has always been a great place to watch football. Having sat in all sections of the stadium, I can tell you that sight lines are fantastic from just about everywhere. The field is about four feet below the stands, so Carolina's basketball-minded fans can sit up close and see more than just players' necks. The rise to the stands is very steep, so fans in the upper deck aren't a long-distance call from the field. The only bad seats in the place are in the first row of section 101 on the south side and the first row of section 131 on the north side. Both areas stick you in front of a bush, and unless you twist your body around like an insect, you can't see the field.
Kenan crowds tend to be younger and more boisterous than their Dean Dome counterparts -- something the athletic department kept in mind during the renovation. Most of the new west end zone seats are reserved for students. The students already had all or most of three sections in the south stands. Throw that in with the end zone seats being only 20 feet from the field and the sideline seats being only 50 feet from the field, and you have a potential noise factory. It's only been recently that the Heels have had a team good enough and exciting enough to take advantage of the short distances, though--a big reason why Carolina's good teams in the 70s and early 80s played before quiet crowds was because of a steady diet of "five yards and a cloud of dust." If you hear a clanging sound on TV or radio, it's not a malfunction--it's the students banging their pom-poms against the metal bleachers. While tickets haven't become as impossible to find as they are for basketball, you're still taking a big risk if you're trying to find tickets on game day. The Heels have sold out every game since 1992. The largest crowd ever was the 62,000 throng that saw the Heels get throttled 20-3 by Florida State on Nov. 8, 1997. The largest paid crowd was 60,000 (60,100 total) for the 1998 season opener against Miami of Ohio.
The Tar Pit has always been very good to the Tar Heels--they have a record of 231-134-16 in 72 years at Kenan. Since it became known as "the Tar Pit" in 1996, the Heels have been an eye-popping 13-4.
Copyright 2002 by Everlasting Images
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