FRANKLIN FIELD
USA'S OLDEST FOOTBALL FIELD
Philadelphia is America's most historic city, so it is not surprising that America's oldest operating college football field is here too.
College football has been played at Franklin Field since 1895 - a year that was closer in time to Ben Franklin's life than to the present day. Franklin Field was the site of the first Army-Navy game, as well as the first football game broadcast on radio, as well as the first one broadcast on television.
Through the years, Franklin Field has been home not only to the Penn Quakers and Penn Relays, but to the Eagles (1958-1970), the long-forgotten Philadelphia Bell of the long-forgotten World Football League (1975), a couple of pro soccer teams (the Atoms and the Fury), and even a pro frisbee team (the Spinners).
The place was originally a pauper's burial ground, and skulls from there are still on display at the Penn Museum.
The first football game at Franklin Field took place on October 1, 1895, when the Quakers defeated Swarthmore 40-0. The original stadium structure was smaller, but an upper deck was added in 1922, making Franklin Field the first football stadium with an upper deck.
Younger Eagles fans may find this hard to believe, but even into the Monday Night Football era, the Birds played NFL games at a stadium that had a building (not stands) behind one of the end zones, and where fans watched games from benches with painted seat numbers. When visiting the rest room, male fans peed into a communal water trough.
And how could we ever forget the scoreboard, which did not have a digital time display but instead used an analog dial clock!
Despite all of this, Franklin Field was not a bad place to watch an Eagles game, although the running track surrounding the football field kept fans a little farther away from the action.
Franklin Field was the first NFL stadium with artificial turf (not that it helped the then-pathetic Eagles).
Some of you may be wondering whether another Penn campus building, the Palestra - built in 1927 - is America's oldest operating basketball arena. It is not. That honor belongs to Northeastern University's Matthews Arena, which opened in 1910.
Older stadiums do not necessarily mean luckier teams. The last time the Penn Quakers won the national college football title was 1908. And Northeastern has never won the national college basketball title.
