Browsing: Baylor Stadium

On Sept. 30, 1950, Baylor University opened the $1.8 million “Baylor Stadium” with a 34-7 home win against the University of Houston under head coach George Sauer. On Saturday night, Baylor will look to close out the 63-year- old Floyd Casey Stadium against a historic rival, the No. 25 Texas Longhorns.

The stadium has been the home of Baylor football ever since the opener against Houston in 1950. In the time since President Harry Truman, the home of the Bears has gone through several updates, including the addition of a 23-by-31-foot LED video screen and skyboxes added in 2002.

Dust will not have to settle on the seats of the new Baylor stadium as the venue will be open year-round for community events.

Baylor is partnering with SMG and ClubCorp to offer stadium services.

“The stadium itself is a partnership between the university and the city,” said Lori Fogleman, assistant vice president for media communications. “Baylor will be handling the management of our athletic events in the stadium, but for city events, we wanted to make sure there were well-known companies that could accommodate their needs in a first class manner.”

The construction of the new Baylor Stadium, projected to be open by the first football game of 2014, is on schedule.

“It’s an aggressive schedule from the very start,” said Jim Heley, the senior project manager for Austin-Flintco. “We knew that going in.”

Heley was referring to the six-day workweeks that construction crews often carry out. Brian Nicholson, associate vice president for facility, planning and construction, said some workdays can range from 18 to 24 hours.

On the night of July 19, 2012, when Baylor’s regents approved construction for the $250 million Baylor Stadium, all the stars were aligned.

On May 11, 2012, Baylor approved a new strategic vision “Pro Futuris,” a vision that, in broad strokes, called for growth. The 2011-2012 sports season, what ESPN.com called “one of the greatest combined athletic seasons in NCAA history,” brought Baylor into the national spotlight.

Baylor’s efforts to explore building a new on-campus football stadium were bolstered last week when the university announced the largest capital gift in school history to help fund the project.

The Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center is missing from a model of the proposed football stadium, the third such rendering depicting the north end of campus without the home of the Baylor Alumni Association.

Two previously unreleased renderings of a proposed football stadium reveal what the stadium might look like in the context of the surrounding campus, but one building is missing from the renderings: the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center.

The Baylor Board of Regents moved one step closer to allowing the construction of a new on-campus football stadium at its homecoming meeting Friday, while also approving an ambitious set of capital investments, including the construction of a new $70 million student housing and dining complex.