One of America's great stadiums, celebrating its 58th season in 2008, is the home of Rice Owls Football.
Rice Stadium has proved to be the master of time. It is still recognized as the best stadium in which to watch a football game in Texas. The stadium seats 70,000 fans, a tribute to a university with only 2,600 undergraduate students.
In 1949, the Rice Owls fielded one of its greatest teams led by all-Americas Froggie Williams and Joe Watson, won the Southwest Conference championship and the 1950 Cotton Bowl with a 10-1 record.
However, old Rice Stadium (now the Rice Track Stadium) seated less than 37,000 fans. Houston's civic leaders decided the old structure was not a proper venue for the South West Conference champions, much less a city with a future so bright. The idea for the new Rice Stadium was born.
Brown & Root Construction was the general contractor for the project and the ground breaking was held in February. Working 24-hour shifts for the next nine months, Brown & Root completed the stadium in time for the 1950 season opener in late September.
Rice Stadium remains unique because it was built for football only. There is no running track around the perimeter of the field, so sightlines and facilities are still as functional today as they were in 1950.
The entire Rice football operation is housed in the stadium. The Owls' locker rooms and the Owl Club at the south end of the stadium were recently renovated, making those areas among the finest in the SWC. Offices for the Owls' coaching staff and football meeting rooms are also located in the stadium.
One of the more significant additions to the stadium complex is the John L. Cox Weight Fitness Center. The 8,000-square-foot complex, newly constructed on the southeast corner of the stadium, is one of the premier college facilities in the nation. The next phase of construction, which will be finished in time for the 1996 season, is the expansion of the Rice locker room and renovation of the sports medicine and equipment areas.
The Owls and their opponents will also be playing under a new lighting system (which was added in 1995), enabling the return of night games to the stadium.
The Owl Club, atop the south end zone, is virtually a historical museum of the great Rice athletes and teams. The walls are filled with the photos of past Owls, forming a fitting site for many team functions. The room is also used for academic, civic and other social events.
Rice Stadium has been the scene of many exciting moments in the football histories of Rice, the city of Houston and the National Football League. At various times, the stadium has served as the home stadium for the Bluebonnet Bowl, the University of Houston, Texas Southern University and the NFL's Houston Oilers. In 1974, Rice Stadium was the site of Super Bowl VIII, in which the Miami Dolphins defeated the Minnesota Vikings.
Recently, the stadium has become a major concert venue. Huge crowds were part of the excitement for the Pink Floyd, Eagles and Billy Joel and Elton John concerts in the stadium the last two years.
More than 8,600,000 fans have watched Rice Owls football at Rice Stadium.
Source: Rice University
Patrick Harris writes: "Jeppesen Stadium was owned by the Houston Independent School District and has no connection either by operation or proximity with Rice University. The Oilers DID play in Rice Stadium between the glorious, mud-filled campaigns of Jeppesen and the swelled knees and strawberried forearms of Harris County Stadium. Jeppesen played host to forty or fifty schoolboy games each week before George Blanda and company came in on Sunday. This action combined with mandatory Saturday rainstorms to produce the most photogenic interior line play in the history of football.
For REAL MEN, Rice Stadium may be the best anywhere. This assumes you are there to watch the ball game, not gawk at a fancy scoreboard. Rice Stadium is a graceful, clean construction of concrete and brick. The seats are plain old wood benches bolted to the structure, but the sightlines are the best anywhere. There's no track or other purpose to the facility. The seating starts very near the edge of the field. No matter where you sit, (all 70,000 of "you") there's an optical effect that the field just looks too short. It is because you never sat in a stadium with such well developed sighting. Rice is the most underrated sports facility anywhere.
Rice stadium had a very short construction time, with much sponsorship by the Brown & Root Construction company. At the time of construction of the 70,000 seat facility, the enrollment at Rice stood at something like 2,000. (And it's still not much more than that.) Rice FILLED that Stadium in November of 1956 (and maybe 57, too) with the
likes of Bear Bryant's Aggies and Darrell Royal's Longhorns playing there.
The Bluebonnet Bowl originated at Rice. Played there for years.
The Aggies agreed to play there EVERY year for one ten year stretch. Bear Bryant got a percentage of the gate during that negotiated term as A&M's agent for the deal, WHICH HE CONTINUED TO COLLECT for years after he bailed out on the Aggies.
When they played the Super Bowl at Rice, the visiting sports writers moaned for weeks about the accommodations, for which I have no sympathy whatever. The Rice press box serves outstanding barbecue, and if you are there to WATCH THE GAME there is no better way to get such a good view for 70,000 than Rice Stadium.
No school bias here, either. I graduated in Architecture from Texas A&M.
Gig 'em Aggies"
