Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
For other uses, see Memorial Coliseum (disambiguation) and Coliseum.The
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is a large outdoor sports
stadium in
Downtown Los Angeles, California at
Exposition Park that has hosted two Olympics and is home to the USC Trojans football team. It is located next to the
Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena adjacent to the campus of the
University of Southern California. It is sometimes referred to as
The Grand Old Lady or
The Old Gray Lady by Los Angelenos.
Originally opened in May 1923, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which for a time was known as Olympic Stadium, served as the primary track and field venue and site of the opening and closing ceremonies of both the
1932 and
1984 Summer Olympic Games. The Olympic cauldron torch which burned through the Games remains above the peristyle at one end of the stadium as a reminder of this, as do the Olympic rings symbols over one of the main entrances. A pair of life-sized
bronze statues of male and female athletes atop a 20,000 pound (9,000 kg) post-and-lintel frame formed the
Olympic Gateway created by
Robert Graham for the
1984 games. The statues, modeled on
water polo player
Terry Schroeder and
sprinter
Jackie Joyner-Kersee who participated in the games, were noted for their anatomical accuracy.
The Olympic Cauldron (also known as the Olympic Torch) is still lit during USC football games, and other special occasions (i.e., when the Olympics are being held in another city). In 2004, the cauldron was lit non-stop for seven days in tribute to
Ronald Reagan, who had died; and was lit again in April 2005 following the death of
Pope John Paul II, who had held mass at the Coliseum during his visit to Los Angeles in 1987. The torch was also lit for over a week following the
September 11, 2001 attacks and, long before that, in the aftermath of the assassination of President
Kennedy in 1963.
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Aerial view of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during a USC football game. |
Many other events have been held at the Coliseum over the years, and only a few are listed here. For nearly 60 years, it served as the home football stadium for both the USC Trojans (the main campus being across the street) and the
UCLA Bruins. In the fall of
1982, with the
Oakland Raiders scheduled to move in, UCLA decided to move out, relocating its home games to the
Rose Bowl in
Pasadena. USC's agreement to play all its home games at the Coliseum was a contributing factor to its original construction. The former
Cleveland Rams of the
National Football League relocated to the Coliseum in
1946, becoming the Los Angeles Rams; but the team later relocated again, first to
Anaheim in
1979, then to
St. Louis, Missouri in
1995. The Los Angeles Dons of the
All America Football Conference played in the Coliseum from 1946 to 1949, when the conference merged with the NFL and the Dons franchise was folded. In
1960 the
American Football League's
Los Angeles Chargers played at the Coliseum before relocating to
San Diego the next year. In
1982 the Rams were temporarily replaced as tenants by the former
Oakland Raiders, however this team subsequently returned to Oakland in
1995, leaving the Coliseum without a professional football tenant for the first time since the close of
World War II. The most recent pro football tenant has been the short-lived
Los Angeles Xtreme, the first and only champion of the
XFL. The Coliseum was also the site of the very first
NFL-AFL Championship Game in
January 1967, an event since given the modest name of the
Super Bowl. It also hosted the
Super Bowl in 1973.
The Coliseum was also home to the
USFL's
Los Angeles Express. In this capacity, the stadium also is the site of the longest professional
American football game in history; a triple-overtime game on
June 30,
1984 (a few weeks before the start of the 1984 Summer Olympics) between the Express and the
Michigan Panthers, which was decided on a 24-yard game winning touchdown by Mel Gray of the Express, 3:33 into the third overtime to give Los Angeles a 27-21 win.
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A Dodgers game at the Coliseum. |
Other sporting events held at the Coliseum over the years have included
Major League Baseball, which was held at the Coliseum when the former
Brooklyn Dodgers of the
National League relocated to Los Angeles in
1958. The Dodgers played here until
Dodger Stadium was completed in time for the
1962 season, despite the fact that the Coliseum's one-tier, oval bowl shape was extremely poorly-suited to
baseball. Although ill-suited as a Major League Baseball field, with its left field line at 251 feet (77 m) and power alley at 320 feet (98 m), it was ideally suited for large paying crowds. Each of the three games of the
1959 World Series played there drew over 92,706 fans, a record unlikely to be challenged anytime soon, given the smaller seating capacities of today's baseball parks. A May 1959 exhibition game between the Dodgers and the
New York Yankees in honor of legendary catcher
Roy Campanella drew 93,103, the largest crowd ever to see a baseball game in the Western Hemisphere. The Coliseum also hosted the second
1959 MLB All-Star Game. The venue was the site of the NFL
Pro Bowl from
1951-
1972 and again in
1979. The Coliseum was also the site of John F. Kennedy's memorable acceptance speech at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. It was during that speech that Kennedy first used the term "the
New Frontier."
When the Coliseum opened in 1922, it was already the largest stadium in Los Angeles with a capacity of 76,000. However, with the arrival of the Olympics only 10 years later, the stadium was expanded to 101,574 and the now-signature torch was added.
For many years the Coliseum was capable of seating over 100,000 spectators, and the capacity for the 1984 Olympics configuration was approximately 90,000. Subsequently, many seats — and the running track — were removed to appease Raiders owner
Al Davis, partially in order to make the venue more easily sold out so that his team's game could appear live on L.A.
television, which is forbidden by NFL rules unless a game is already sold out at least 72 hours prior to its scheduled kickoff. Some of the removed seats, which were primarily in the end zone, were replaced with new bleachers far closer to the end lines of the playing field. (The combination of the stadium's large, relatively shallow design, along with the presence of the track between the playing field and the stands, meant that some of the former end zone seats were essentially away from the field by the equivalent in length to another football field.)
However, with Davis' Raiders now long gone, and the need for repairs after the 1994
Northridge Earthquake, some of the changes that he had demanded were reversed, and the current configuration is somewhat similar to that used for the 1984 Olympics. USC's regular alternating home games with rivals UCLA and
Notre Dame attract a capacity 92,000 person crowd each year. The current official capacity of the Coliseum is 92,516.
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Rendering of the renovated Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. |
There is great debate about the Coliseum's potential as a modern NFL stadium. Although the Coliseum is an important historical sports venue, it is regarded by some as no longer adequate to be the home of a major professional sports organization. Since it was designed and built long before the age of club seats, luxury boxes, and many of the other money-generating amenities that modern football stadiums possess, any professional team moving to the Coliseum will likely have to do extensive renovations. Los Angeles County voters are generally uninterested in appropriating tax revenues toward a new stadium, which would put the costs of renovation on any future tenant. Another factor is its location at the edge of
South Los Angeles, which is perceived by many potential fans as a somewhat unsafe part of the city, although the area is considerably safer today than it was when the stadium housed two NFL teams. Because of the difficulties that the NFL has had with trying to finance a renovated Coliseum, Rose Bowl or brand new stadium, it has been absent from the second-largest
media market in the United States, remarkably, for over a decade. (The NFL was to award a franchise to Los Angeles in 2002, but debate over a stadium, coupled with
Houston's aggressiveness, led the NFL to award the franchise to Houston instead.)
On
November 10,
2005 NFL commissioner
Paul Tagliabue announced that the NFL and city officials have reached a preliminary agreement on bringing an NFL team back to the Coliseum. However, no details have been decided.
An article in the Wednesday,
May 24,
2006 issue of the
Los Angeles Times made light of a proposition to spend tens of millions of dollars of city funds to heavily renovate the stadium, and indicated that the city may make more than $100 million dollars in added funds available in the future toward further renovation. City leaders who support the spending despite significant disapproval from the local population cite that the renovations are necessary to help attract a new NFL team to the city, and that the tax revenue generated by the presence of a new franchise team would eventually pay back the investment many times over. Supporters further claim that the addition of a new NFL team will increase employment in the area adjacent to the stadium, a major concern because the area's population is largely of low and middle income, that these people will themselves help repay the expenditure by paying income taxes, that the presence of a new team will stimulate the local economy by making the area more attractive to new businesses (which themselves could theoretically employee hundreds of tax payers) and that the overall impact on the area will help to raise the area's real estate values.
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Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena*
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum official website*
Los Angeles Sports Council*
USC Trojans 
