Joe Aillet Stadium

Joe Aillet Stadium
"The Joe"

Joe Aillet Stadium home stands and press box

The press box and home stands at Joe Aillet Stadium
Former names Louisiana Tech Stadium (1968–1972)
Location 1450 West Alabama Avenue
Ruston, LA 71272
Coordinates 32°31′56″N 92°39′21″W / 32.53222°N 92.65583°W / 32.53222; -92.65583Coordinates: 32°31′56″N 92°39′21″W / 32.53222°N 92.65583°W / 32.53222; -92.65583
Owner Louisiana Tech University
Operator Louisiana Tech University
Capacity 23,000 (1968–1988)
30,600 (1989–2013)
27,717 (2014)[1]
28,019 (2015–present)
Surface Grass (1968–2005)
FieldTurf (2006–present)
Opened September 28, 1968
Tenants
Louisiana Tech Bulldogs football (NCAA college football) 1968–present
Lady Techster soccer team (2004–2008)

Joe Aillet Stadium (formerly Louisiana Tech Stadium) is a college football stadium in Ruston, Louisiana and the home field of the Louisiana Tech University Bulldogs football team, which competes in Conference USA. The football stadium replaced the original Tech Stadium where the school's football program played its home games on campus until 1967.

Originally called Louisiana Tech Stadium, Joe Aillet Stadium opened in 1968 and was renamed for retired Louisiana Tech head football coach and athletic director Joe Aillet in 1972.

History

The stadium was built in 1968 with an original capacity of 23,318 as a replacement for the original "Tech Stadium" on the university's campus. The new football stadium was constructed on the northwest portion of the campus as part of a new athletic complex which included a 3,000-seat baseball stadium now known as J. C. Love Field at Pat Patterson Park, 10 lighted tennis courts, and a track and field complex now known as the Jim Mize Track and Field Complex.[2]

The new stadium, known as Tech Stadium or Louisiana Tech Stadium at the time, hosted its first Louisiana Tech home football game on September 28, 1968 when quarterback Terry Bradshaw led the Bulldogs to a 35-7 victory over the East Carolina University Pirates.

After four seasons as Tech Stadium, the stadium was renamed Joe Aillet Stadium prior to the 1972 season in honor of Joe Aillet, the longtime head football coach and athletic director of Louisiana Tech who died on December 28, 1971. On November 11, 1972, the official dedication ceremonies of the newly renamed Joe Aillet Stadium were held during a home football game between Tech and Eastern Michigan.

The 1997 season saw the largest crowd in school history of 28,714 for a 17-16 victory by the Bulldogs over the Northeast Louisiana Indians.

Future professional quarterback Tim Rattay was involved in the first-ever matchup of future pro quarterbacks at the stadium, facing off against UCF's Daunte Culpepper in 1998.

The first nationally-televised game at the stadium came in 2002 against the Fresno State Bulldogs.

In an October 2004 rematch, the team achieved an upset victory by defeating the 17th-ranked Bulldogs.

In 2008, the team defeated the Mississippi State University Bulldogs 22-14 in its season opener. It was the first-ever visit by a school from a BCS conference to Joe Aillet Stadium.

Notable Games

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

Features

Joe Aillet Stadium originally sat 23,000, but in 1985, the school added luxury boxes to the stadium's press box, and in 1989 the stadium's capacity was raised by 7,600 seats to 30,600.

The stadium's FieldTurf playing surface was installed in 2008.

The seating is made up of two large bowed grandstands on either side of the field, built into a natural bowl. The press box and skybox are on the west side. The facility also includes Spirit of '88, a bronze bulldog statue which commemorates the school's first season in Division I-A. During games, it is ceremonially guarded by the university's Air Force ROTC Valkyrie Honor Guard. A field house is located behind the south hill. There are scoreboards behind both end zone berms, and the stadium features eight banks of lights surrounding the field 150 feet (46 m) above the playing surface.

In 2009, Louisiana Tech announced plans to install a high definition video scoreboard on the north end of the stadium and a new sound system for the entire stadium. On September 19, 2009, the $2 million 25-by-45-foot scoreboard nicknamed "Dawgzilla" was unveiled during Louisiana Tech football's home season opener against Nicholls State. At the time of its debut, "Dawgzilla" was the largest scoreboard in the Western Athletic Conference.[3]

In the fall of 2010, the university announced a $20 million fundraising campaign to build a 90,000-square-foot (8,400 m2) facility at the southern end of the facility.[4] The stadium has already used some donations for a brick fence on the west side of the stadium, renovations to restrooms, new shrubs and plants in the stadium, and a tunnel leading from the player's locker rooms to the field.

The ground breaking ceremony for the South End Zone project was held during halftime of the 2014 Spring Game on April 12, 2014. The construction of the new complex began on April 17, 2014. The new athletic complex was completed August 2015.[5]

Other uses

The Louisiana Tech Lady Techster soccer team use Joe Aillet Stadium as its home facility since the program's inception in 2004. The first Lady Techster soccer game in the stadium was on August 28, 2005, a 2-0 win over the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils. Tech soccer moved into the stadium beginning with the 2006 season, and has an overall record of 9-9-3 through the 2007 season in games played at the stadium. In 2009, the Lady Techsters soccer team moved to their new home field located across the street from the stadium.[6]

See also

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, February 11, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.