Location in the United States Location in Texas | |
Former names | Houston Stadium |
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Location | 6100 South Main Street Houston, Texas, U.S. |
Coordinates | 29°42′59″N95°24′33″W / 29.71639°N 95.40917°W |
Owner | Rice University |
Operator | Rice University |
Capacity | 47,000 (expandable to 59,000) [1] Super Bowl VIII (68,142) [2] |
Surface | Natural grass (1950–1969) AstroTurf (1970–2005) FieldTurf (2006–2014) AstroTurf GameDay Grass 3D60H (2014–present) |
Construction | |
Broke ground | February 1950 |
Opened | September 30, 1950 |
Construction cost | $3.295 million ($41.7 million in 2023 dollars [3] ) |
Architect | Hermon Lloyd & W.B. Morgan and Milton McGinty [4] |
Structural engineer | Walter P Moore [5] |
General contractor | Brown & Root Constructors |
Tenants | |
Rice Owls (NCAA) (1950–present) Houston Cougars (NCAA) (1951–1964) Texas Southern Tigers (NCAA) (1971–2000) Bluebonnet Bowl (1959–1967, 1985-1986) Houston Oilers (AFL) (1965–1967) Houston Roughnecks (UFL) (2024–present) |
Rice Stadium is an American football stadium located on the Rice University campus in Houston, Texas. It has been the home of the Rice Owls football team since its completion in 1950, [6] and hosted John F. Kennedy's "We choose to go to the Moon" speech in 1962 and Super Bowl VIII in early 1974.
Architecturally, Rice Stadium is an example of modern architecture, with simple lines and an unadorned, functional design. The lower seating bowl is located below the surrounding ground level. Built solely for football, the stadium has excellent sightlines from almost every seat. To achieve this, the running track was eliminated so that spectators were closer to the action and each side of the upper decks was brought in at a concave angle to provide better sightlines. It is still recognized in many circles as the best stadium in Texas for watching a football game. Entrances and aisles were strategically placed so that the entire stadium could be emptied of spectators in nine minutes. [7]
In 2006, Rice University upgraded the facility by switching from AstroTurf to FieldTurf and adding a modern scoreboard above the north concourse. [8] Seating in the upper deck is in poor condition, which led the university to move home games for which large crowds were expected to nearby NRG Stadium.
High school football games, especially neutral-site playoff games, are frequently played at Rice Stadium. It can also be used as a concert venue.
Rice Stadium replaced Rice Field (now Wendel D. Ley Track and Holloway Field), which had a total capacity of less than 37,000, in 1950. [9] The new stadium was subsidized by the City of Houston, and it was designed by Hermon Lloyd & W. B. Morgan and Milton McGinty and built by Brown and Root.
In addition to Rice, the University of Houston Cougars played at Rice Stadium from 1951 through 1964, and the former Bluebonnet Bowl was played there from 1959 to 1967, and in 1985 and 1986. The Houston Oilers of the American Football League (AFL) played in the stadium for three seasons (1965–1967), then moved to the Astrodome in 1968.
In January 1974, the venue hosted Super Bowl VIII, the first played in Texas, in which the defending champion Miami Dolphins defeated the Minnesota Vikings 24–7 with 68,142 in attendance. [2] The game returned to Houston thirty years later in February 2004, for Super Bowl XXXVIII at Reliant Stadium.
On September 12, 1962, Rice Stadium hosted the speech in which President John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to meet his goal, set the previous year, to send a man to the Moon by the end of the decade. [10] In the Wednesday afternoon speech, he used a reference to Rice University football to help frame his rhetoric:
"But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
Kennedy's comments implied Rice had a history of losing to Texas; however, the two football teams had split 5–5 in their previous ten meetings and tied the following month. On the other hand, Kennedy's comments about Rice-Texas might have been as forward-looking as his statements about going to the Moon (which did occur in 1969): Since 1963, Rice has gone just 2–43 (.044) against Texas, including 28 straight losses between 1966 and 1993 and twenty straight from 1995 to the present. [11]
This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies.(May 2024) |
On July 2, 1988, Rice Stadium hosted a stop on the Monsters of Rock tour. The tour was headlined by Van Halen and also featured Metallica, Scorpions, Dokken, and Kingdom Come. This was also the Texas World Music Festival.
Season | Head Coach | Conference | Avg. Crowd | Home Record |
---|---|---|---|---|
2017 | David Bailiff | Conference USA | 19,354 | 0-5 |
2018 | Mike Bloomgren | 20,172 | 2-4 | |
2019 | 18,845 | 1-5 | ||
2020 | 1,000 | 0-2 | ||
2021 | 18,613 | 3-3 | ||
2022 | 19,011 | 4-2 | ||
2023 | American Athletic Conference | 20,542 | 4-3 | |
2024 | 17,529 | 1-1 |
As originally built, Rice Stadium seated 70,000, the second-largest stadium in the Southwest Conference (behind the Cotton Bowl). Rice Stadium was built before professional football came to Houston and while Rice was still competitive in the Southwest Conference. It was reasonable to expect 70,000 fans to attend a college football game there. However, as Rice declined on the field from the 1960s onward, the Owls found it increasingly difficult to fill the stadium. Even crowds of 30,000 were swallowed up in the environment.
In 2006, the end zone seats were covered with tarps, reducing the regular seating capacity to 47,000. The northern end zone was later demolished. As of 2023 [update] , school continues exploring options for a modern seating arrangement with a reduced capacity. [12]
Around July 2015, construction began on the Brian Patterson Sports Performance Center. This building makes up the north end of the stadium, and contain a weight room, a home team locker room, coaching and staff offices. This replaced the north end seating that consisted of crude concrete steps and was unused. The building was named for donor and former Rice University football player and alumnus Brian Patterson. [13]
On May 9, 2019, the Rice University Board of Trustees approved a proposal for an air-supported multipurpose facility on the west side of Rice Stadium that will offer climate-protected space for varsity athletics training, campus recreation and Rice student events, activities and community partner events. The 80,000 square foot inflatable structure rose up from the infield area of the bike track west of Rice Stadium for the first time in late July 2020, creating a facility to house practices, intramurals and other events when weather put those events in peril.
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The Rice Owls football program represents Rice University in the sport of American football. The team competes at the NCAA Division I FBS level and compete in the American Athletic Conference. Rice Stadium, built in 1950, hosts the Owls' home football games. Rice has the second-smallest undergraduate enrollment of any FBS member, ahead of only Tulsa.
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Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort, commonly known by the sentence in the middle of the speech "We choose to go to the Moon", was a speech on September 12, 1962 by John F. Kennedy, the President of the United States. The aim was to bolster public support for his proposal to land a man on the Moon before 1970 and bring him safely back to Earth. Kennedy gave the speech, largely written by presidential advisor and speechwriter Ted Sorensen, to a large crowd at Rice University Stadium in Houston, Texas. In his speech, Kennedy characterized space as a new frontier, invoking the pioneer spirit that dominated American folklore. He infused the speech with a sense of urgency and destiny, and emphasized the freedom enjoyed by Americans to choose their destiny rather than have it chosen for them. Although he called for competition with the Soviet Union, Kennedy also proposed making the Moon landing a joint project. The speech resonated widely, although there was disquiet about the cost and value of the Moon-landing effort. Kennedy's goal was realized posthumously, in July 1969, with the Apollo program's successful Apollo 11 mission.
The Rice–Texas football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Rice Owls and Texas Longhorns. Texas leads the series 75–21–1 through the 2023 season. The teams were conference rivals for 81 seasons in the Southwest Conference from 1915 through 1995. The Longhorns have largely dominated the series, as Rice has won only twice since 1960. 17 of the 21 Rice wins came between 1930 and 1960, a span over which it enjoyed a slight edge over the Longhorns.
The 1962 Rice Owls football team represented Rice University during the 1962 NCAA University Division football season. In its 23rd season under head coach Jess Neely, the team compiled a 2–6–2 record and was outscored by a total of 173 to 119. The team played its home games at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, where just before the season John F. Kennedy delivered his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech.
Events and tenants | ||
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Preceded by | Home of the Bluebonnet Bowl 1959 – 1967 1985 – 1986 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | Home of the Houston Oilers 1965 – 1967 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | Host of Super Bowl VIII 1974 | Succeeded by |