Dartmouth To Downsize Seating

[DFW HOYA]

Memorial Stadium will drop capacity down to 13,000 by reducing visitor seating from 10,000 to 3,500.

http://www.vnews.com/06172005/2467117.htm

[Go...gate]

Dartmouth is having to face many of the decisions all of the Ivy and Patriot schools (most former 1-A's) are facing, and stadia from 25,000 to 60,000 is just not realistic (unless you are Princeton, Penn, Harvard or Yale). In reality, 13,500 sounds about right for Memorial Field, which is a nice place to watch a ballgame. Lafayette is on schedule to do a similar re-modeling; Columbia, Cornell, Colgate and Bucknell have done similar downsizing in the past 15 years and it seems likely that Brown will do the same when Brown Stadium needs a facelift.

[DFW HOYA]

Are there any photos of what Colgate's stadium looked like before the Andy Kerr renovations? What was its maximum capacity?

[Go...gate]

I have no pictures, but I spent a lot of time there so these recollections may help. Seating capacity was 12,500, which could be exceeded by the addition of end zone stands, which was done for the 1977 Rutgers game (estimated attendance that day was 18,000) and for the 1982 Holy Cross game (actual attendance was 14,500). It was a glorified high-school set with with wood bleachers which became very weathered through the years with the resulting splinters. The home stands were actually where the road stands are now (the press-box side). In 1983, the wooden bleachers were removed from the home stands and replaced by aluminum bleachers which remain today.

[ngineer]

Dartmouth is having to face many of the decisions all of the Ivy and Patriot schools (most former 1-A's) are facing, and stadia from 25,000 to 60,000 is just not realistic (unless you are Princeton, Penn, Harvard or Yale). In reality, 13,500 sounds about right for Memorial Field, which is a nice place to watch a ballgame. Lafayette is on schedule to do a similar re-modeling; Columbia, Cornell, Colgate and Bucknell have done similar downsizing in the past 15 years and it seems likely that Brown will do the same when Brown Stadium needs a facelift.

Lafayette already downsized when they built Kirby Fieldhouse back in the late 1970's. At one time Fisher Field held close to 20,000, but reduced the the visitors' side to about 2,500 with the construction of the fieldhouse. Leopards only average about 5-6,000/game so the big grandstands aren't needed--except every other year for Lehigh--but Fisher needs some decent bathrooms before they do anything else. The place is a pit.