The Coliseum

TEXT FARIDA AMAR

“It’s a labor of love to get it all done. Our guys take a lot of pride in making sure things go smoothly but she is an old stadium. She needs a lot of TLC.”

BRIAN GRANT, THE COLISEUM’S DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, or as we like to call it, “The Coliseum,” can be found off the same exit as Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. along the 110 freeway. It’s the point at which you know you’ve hit South LA if you’re leaving Downtown and where you know you’re entering Downtown when you’re leaving South LA. It’s a gateway, and literally a corridor. If you fly helicopters, it’s the point at which you must contact LAX tower for permission to make a South Harbor Transition from Downtown towards Long Beach and if you don’t, you could lose your pilot’s license. Whether you’re on the ground or in the air, if you have spent any time south of Downtown Los Angeles you’ve noticed The Coliseum.

Located in the Exposition Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles, across the street from USC, The Coliseum now serves as a home field for both the USC Trojans and the Los Angeles Rams. The Coliseum was commissioned in 1921 as a memorial to LA veterans of World War I and rededicated to all US veterans of World War I in 1968. The official ground breaking ceremony took place in, 1921 with work being completed in just over 16 months. Designed by John and Donald Parkinson, the original bowl’s initial construction costs were $954,873. When the Coliseum originally opened in 1923 it was the largest stadium in the United States with 75,144 seats, it was expanded in 1930 to 101,574 seats for the 1932 Summer Olympic Games and can now accommodate 93,607 people; now maintaining a record for the second largest seating capacity in the NFL.

The Coliseum is the only facility in the world to host two Olympiads, X and XXIII; two Super Bowls, I and VII; one World Series,1959; a Papal Mass, Pope John Paul II in 1987; visits by three U.S. Presidents, including John F Kennedy’s memorable acceptance speech at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. It was during that speech that JFK first used the term “the New Frontier.” And my personal favorite moment — The Coliseum was the site of Nelson Mandela’s triumphant return to the United States in 1990. In recent news, the International Olympic Committee announced that in 2028 the Coliseum will again host the Summer Olympic Games.

Aside from all the historic events and speeches, The Coliseum is a sports arena after all and has become a second home for many professional sports teams including the Rams from Cleveland (1946-79), the Dodgers from Brooklyn (1958-61), the Lakers from Minneapolis (1960-67), the Raiders from Oakland (1982-94), the Clippers from San Diego (1984-99). It also served as the stomping grounds for many local teams including the UCLA Bruins Football team (1933-81), UCLA Basketball team (1959-65), USC Basketball team (1959-2006), the Chargers (1960), the Cobras (1988), the Ice Dogs (1995-96), the Sharks (1972-74), the Stars (1968-70) and the Kings (1967).

On March 29, 2008, the LA Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox set a Guinness Word Record for the largest attendance ever at a baseball game with a crowd of 115,300. And still, the most shocking factoid of all my research on The Coliseum records is that the largest attendance ever recorded in over nine decades of history making was an appearance by evangelical Christian Billy Graham in what he called the Coliseum Crusade organized by the Church of Christ. 134,254 people showed up to be “saved” on December 8, 1963. The Los Angeles Times reported that it was “the largest opening night audience we ever have had in the United States.” #wtf

The Coliseum has also hosted a number of music concerts including The Rolling Stones, George Thorogood and the J. Geils Band who had Prince, who at the time was relatively unknown, open for them in 1981; Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band in 1985 and 1988; U2in 1987 and 1997; Van Halen, Scorpions, Dokken, Metallica and Kingdom Come, in 1988. Sting, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, Youssou N’Dour and Joan Baez in 1988; RBD in 2006 who’s 70,000 tickets sold out in 30 minutes; and Rage Against the Machine, Muse, Rise Against, Lauryn Hill, Immortal Technique and El Gran Silencio in 2011. The Coliseum also formerly hosted the major U.S. electronic dance music festival Electric Daisy Carnival. It last hosted the event in 2010; following the drug-related death of an underage attendee at EDC that year, the festival’s organizer Insomniac Events was blacklisted from hosting future events at the venue, and it subsequently moved to Las Vegas Motor Speedway beginning in 2011.

For obvious reasons, the State of California and the United States Government declared the Coliseum a State and Federal Historical Landmark on July 27, 1984, the day before the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics. Today, most of USC’s regular home games, especially the alternating games with rivals UCLA and Notre Dame, attract a capacity crowd. USC’s women lacrosse and soccer teams use the Coliseum for selected games, usually involving major opponents and televised games. USC also rents the Coliseum to various events, including international soccer games, musical concerts and other large outdoor events.