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re: What will happen to Legion Field?
Posted on 9/3/20 at 10:46 am to The Spleen
Posted on 9/3/20 at 10:46 am to The Spleen
That turf was indeed a BITCH!! When people asked me about playing on that turf, I felt the only way to describe it was saying " paint the parking lot green and then put lines down on it!" Same damn difference!!!
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Posted on 9/3/20 at 11:06 am to RollTide1987
I bet UAB fans have never been happier to be in Legion Field than this year now that everywhere is pushing capacity down.
Posted on 9/3/20 at 11:28 am to imjustafatkid
quote:
bet UAB fans have never been happier to be in Legion Field than this year now that everywhere is pushing capacity down.
How can they tell? No one goes to those games
Posted on 9/3/20 at 11:33 am to RollTide1987
I went to 2 games there. The one where Peyton Manning destroyed us and the one where Dubose lost to LaTech. I hate that place. My dad downed a whole 12 pack of Natty Light on the way home from that La Tech game. Had me in the passenger seat popping them open for him so he could keep his eye on the road and keep us safe
Posted on 9/3/20 at 11:43 am to mistaken4193
I likewise attended only two games at Legion Field but, unlike your experience, they were both victories (2000 Vanderbilt and 2002 MTSU). The younger fans will never know what it was like to attend an Alabama game in Birmingham. They'll probably be surprised to learn that that is where our marquee games used to be played.
Posted on 9/3/20 at 11:50 am to RollTide1987
I always loved games at Legion Field. Maybe it's because the bigger home games were there, but they always had a much better atmosphere than BDS. Went to most of them there in late 80's through the 90's. Saw some great ones, and some stinkers. Miss parking and tailgating in someone's yard.
A lot of those drives back to Tuscaloosa sucked though.
A lot of those drives back to Tuscaloosa sucked though.
Posted on 9/3/20 at 12:11 pm to RollTide1987
quote:
I likewise attended only two games at Legion Field but, unlike your experience, they were both victories (2000 Vanderbilt and 2002 MTSU). The younger fans will never know what it was like to attend an Alabama game in Birmingham. They'll probably be surprised to learn that that is where our marquee games used to be played.
Living just outside of B'ham it was so easy to get to Legion Field on game day and pick up a ticket. The barn also played all the better teams there as well. You could often pick up a free ticket and root for LSU or Tennessee over the Barn if you didn't have much to do.
Legion Field was the scene of the first college football network primetime game between Archie Manning and Ole Miss and the Crimson Tide lead by Scott Hunter.
We even had NFL teams coming in and playing preseason games at Legion Field. Got to see teams like the Jets vs Buffalo, Kansas City Chiefs vs Oakland Raiders, and a lot of players made themselves accessible to a lot of the kids like myself after the game. Got to meet Joe Willy and the Snake, OJ, Daryle "the mad bomber" Lamonica, and Len Dawson to name a few. I was a huge Oakland Raiders fan growing up.
That place used to rock football.
Posted on 9/3/20 at 1:27 pm to 14&Counting
quote:
How can they tell? No one goes to those games
They get a fair amount of people for a lower level FBS team. Not enough for them to have to worry about coronavirus capacity issues if they're playing at Legion Field, but it would have been a problem if they were playing at the new stadium.
Posted on 9/3/20 at 2:39 pm to East Coast Band
quote:
And before all you nostalgic types complain about it, think about this: The Yankee "House that Ruth Built" Stadium has been torn down. Don't act like Legion Field has anything on Yankee Stadium.
And yet Rickwood Field still stands.
Posted on 9/3/20 at 2:41 pm to The Spleen
quote:
I played in a soccer game in July at Legion Field when they still had the astro turf.
I went to an auction in Gardendale 13 or 14 years ago where all of that turf was actioned off in basically large rolls of carpet. Some guy bought the lot of it for about $300 I think. I don't remember how the city of Gardendale came into possession of it.
Posted on 9/3/20 at 2:51 pm to BamaGradinTn
quote:
The Cramton Bowl in Montgomery is almost 100. And they've always been dinky, bush-league stadiums.
Montgomery put $20-25 million into the Cramton Bowl 4-5 years ago. It's about as nice as it can be now, nothing fancy but cleaner, new field, etc.
Posted on 9/3/20 at 3:20 pm to BamaGradinTn
quote:
I went to an auction in Gardendale 13 or 14 years ago where all of that turf was actioned off in basically large rolls of carpet. Some guy bought the lot of it for about $300 I think. I don't remember how the city of Gardendale came into possession of it.
I would have thought that turf would have been long gone by then. They ripped it up in 95 to get ready for the 96 Olympics soccer games. Guess they had it just sitting in a warehouse.
They put new turf down at BDS sometime in the early 80's and sold squares of the old turf. I have a square of it somewhere that my dad bought.
Posted on 9/4/20 at 11:35 am to bamameister
Ladd is still used by a couple of high school teams and the senior bowl? With South’s new stadium being finished, I can’t imagine that Ladd will continue to be used for much longer.
Posted on 9/5/20 at 11:07 am to RollTide1987
Legion Field isn't historic, it's just old (and obsolete). It would not really be feasible to maintain it going forwards, particularly as city just had to slash budgets on essential services for 2020. "Redevelopment" of the site is going to be challenging as it's not connected to downtown and sitting in the middle of highly impoverished neighborhood. It would most likely be razed and left empty for the medium term.
Posted on 9/5/20 at 3:57 pm to TidalSurge1
That was a sad day. A lot of memories for me in that stadium.
Posted on 9/7/20 at 9:11 am to RollTide1987
I’ve seen the Stallions, the XFL, the CFL, many bowl games, and the Iron play. I saw the Stones rock it out as well. Obviously many Bama games . . .
It is in sad state now - my last game (I forget - the Iron or a bowl game?) really gave me a sense of its run down. The bathrooms are antique and the vending areas were closed - food trucks parked inside were the only source for food.
The memories though . . .
My greatest was the coldest game I’ve ever been to: The first ever SEC Championship. I remember being in the opposite end zone, near the top and bundled with sweatshirts (we bought extras to go over other sweatshirts) watching that beautiful pick six.
During that last game there I took the opportunity to take my son to the top row to look over at the city. It was a great time - and one I knew I’d probably never get again.
It is in sad state now - my last game (I forget - the Iron or a bowl game?) really gave me a sense of its run down. The bathrooms are antique and the vending areas were closed - food trucks parked inside were the only source for food.
The memories though . . .
My greatest was the coldest game I’ve ever been to: The first ever SEC Championship. I remember being in the opposite end zone, near the top and bundled with sweatshirts (we bought extras to go over other sweatshirts) watching that beautiful pick six.
During that last game there I took the opportunity to take my son to the top row to look over at the city. It was a great time - and one I knew I’d probably never get again.
This post was edited on 9/7/20 at 9:14 am
Posted on 9/7/20 at 9:30 am to mistaken4193
quote:
My dad downed a whole 12 pack of Natty Light on the way home from that La Tech game. ]Had me in the passenger seat popping them open for him so he could keep his eye on the road and keep us safe
ha. No offense but that's damn funnuy
Posted on 9/7/20 at 9:31 am to droliver
quote:
Legion Field isn't historic, it's just old (and obsolete). It would not really be feasible to maintain it going forwards, particularly as city just had to slash budgets on essential services for 2020. "Redevelopment" of the site is going to be challenging as it's not connected to downtown and sitting in the middle of highly impoverished neighborhood. It would most likely be razed and left empty for the medium term.
If we can't have nice things, who's fault is that? The difference between old and historic is simply how much the city cares and is willing to invest. B'ham has taken as many steps back as a mover and shaker as the state's biggest city as Legion Field has since the loss of Alabama and Auburn as their main tenants. The mismanaging of a lot of things, including Legion Field, is why we're here discussing this stuff.
The demise of "The Old Gray Lady of Graymont" isn't half as disheartening as the demise of the city of B'ham.
Posted on 9/7/20 at 6:39 pm to bamameister
quote:
The mismanaging of a lot of things, including Legion Field, is why we're here discussing this stuff.
I think a lot of the momentum for doing something about it died when the Stallions folded, Auburn said they wouldn't play their "home" games there anymore, and the NFL came out and said "hell no" Birmingham wasn't going to be considered for a team. All that happened within a few a span of a few years.
Still in the early 90's, the city championed a referendum for a bond issuance to build a new stadium that sat like 80K and would be located downtown. It was voted down pretty handily. The view was that it would be this giant "white elephant" that wouldn't get used outside a couple of mediocre Bama games, sans the Iron Bowl. You would have one huge sell-out event in the Iron Bowl every other year maybe alternated with another marquee game like Tennessee, a big concert once and awhile like the Stones, and that was basically it. Bama was still contracted to play 2-3 games a year but the other marquee Bama games (TSIO, LSU etc.) were being played on campus by that point.
This post was edited on 9/7/20 at 6:55 pm
Posted on 9/8/20 at 8:44 am to bamameister
I think some things that contributed to Legion Field's demise were out of the city's control. It was inevitable that Alabama was going to pull its games from there and opt for the on-campus experience after they expanded the east upper deck. I was a student at the time, and while I always loved games at Legion Field, I can distinctly remember a lot of frustration from fans that we still played games there. The death knell was really when they lost the high school football championship games 15 or so years ago. I don't recall if the city did anything to poison the well of that agreement, but it left the stadium with just UAB football, a modestly attended bowl game, and the Magic City Classic. Its location didn't help either. Ignoring some of the blight in the surrounding area, it's just not an easy place to get to and from. Yeah, it's close to the interstate, but that exit just isn't capable of handing a crowd that size.
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