Bobby Dodd Stadium

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Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field is the football stadium at the corner of North Avenue at Techwood Drive on the campus of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. It has been home to the Yellow Jackets football team since 1905. It is also the oldest stadium in Division I Football Bowl Subdivision.

Bobby Dodd Stadium is named in honor of Robert Lee "Bobby" Dodd,^[1] longtime football coach and athletic director at Georgia Tech. The field is named for Hugh Inman Grant, son of John W. Grant, an Atlanta merchant.

Location

The stadium is located on the east side of the Georgia Tech campus.^[2] It is in the middle of Atlanta, just off Interstate 75/Interstate 85, across from the Varsity restaurant.

History

It was first known as Grant Field (it was renamed Bobby Dodd Stadium in 1988). The stadium is the oldest continuously used on-campus site for college football in the southern United States.^[3]

Football has been played at the current site since 1905. In 1913, grandstands were built for the first time, mostly by Tech students.^[4]^[5]

Grant Field and the east stands around 1912

The stadium does not look like it originally did. It has been expanded several times. The original stadium seated 5,600. By 1925, the west and south stands were completed, making the stadium a 30,000-seat horseshoe with an open north end. The west stands were rebuilt and a large press box was added in 1947, bringing capacity up to 44,000. The original all-steel 4,105-seat North stands were built in 1958. In 1962 and 1968 the upper decks were added to the East and West sides bringing capacity to its all-time high of 58,121. In 1985 the South stands were taken down to make room for the William C. Wardlaw Center.

The west grandstand now covers the old one, which is still underneath it. Grant Field was occasionally used as a site for Atlanta Falcons games during the team's early years when it was sharing Fulton County Stadium with the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball. If the Falcons needed to play a game at the same time as the Braves, they would play at Grant Field. The lighting was replaced in 1998.^[6]

Following the 2001 season, a major expansion and renovation project was started, which was done in two phases in order to play the 2002 season in the stadium. For the 2002 season, seating was returned to the South end in front of the Wardlaw Center, and the original North stands and lower east bleachers were rebuilt and bowled in. After the 2002 season, the expansion was completed by adding a free standing upper deck in the north end zone. This addition of a north end zone upper deck brought Bobby Dodd Stadium to its current capacity. The new stadium was rededicated during the 2003 home season opener versus the Auburn Tigers on September 2, 2003.

In the summer of 2009, Bobby Dodd Stadium underwent a number of changes. First, the scoreboard was renovated and after completion, is now twice as big as the old scoreboard. Also, ribbon boards were installed in front of the Wardlaw Center, as well as along the sides of the stadium. Another change was the improvement of the sound system in the stadium. ^[7]

Bobby Dodd Stadium Media

Grant Field and the south stands in 1985, shortly before their removal
Picture of North stands of Bobby Dodd stadium taken from Bobby Dodd Way
Georgia Tech plays the Virginia Cavaliers at Bobby Dodd Stadium in 2016
Georgia Tech plays Notre Dame on October 31, 2020, with the stadium's new artificial turf field.
Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech game at Grant Field in 1916; looking east toward Techwood Drive (note houses also visible in other early photos)