This was the inaugural season of the Carrier Dome. The season itself wasn't anything special -- we finished 5-6 and didn't go bowling. But I would love to hear about what the experience was like for the people who attended that first home game against Miami-OH.
-Who here attended that first game?
-What was the scene like outside the Dome? Did they have bands playing, a fair-like atmosphere, etc.?
-What were your first impressions upon walking in the Dome?
One thing that is very interesting to me is the bizarre fluctuations in our home crowds that year. We drew 50,564 for the opener, won the game, but only 34,749 wanted to show up the following week? But then we drew 50k crowds at the end of the year again.
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I went.
The difference between Archbold, which was (I believe) the second or third oldest college football stadium still in use, to the Carrier Dome, which was spanking new, shiny and state of the art, was amazing.
We struggled to draw 20K for home games towards the end of the Archbold area. It was amazing to be at a home game with a capacity crowd.
The turf was a really vivid green, brand new of course. The roof was bright white. The dirt from hosting many monster truck events was decades away.
I loved how close the stands were to the field. At Archbold, there was a huge, Olympic sized track that surrounded the field (it was the home of the track and field team), so the stands were far from the field. There was a time when there were temporary bleachers installed to help bridge the gap and get more capacity but by the late 1970s, most if not all of those bleachers were gone. The small footprint that led to the curse of the tight concourses also led to a design where the seats on all levels were the closest to the field of any stadium I had been in. This remains the case to this date. The dome is a fantastic place to watch football games because of this and it made it possible for the dome to serve as a very reasonable home for basketball games later in the year.
It was a capacity crowd. This was before ADA and there were hundreds more seats in there back then. When Syracuse made a good play (and Joe Morris in particular made a number of these), the noise was deafening. We had a home field advantage! Of all the changes and all the memories from that game (it was a wide game with lots of big plays on both sides), the thing I remember the most is the noise the crowd made on good plays for Syracuse. I don’t think anyone expected it. After every big play, we students would shout our lungs out, look at each other and smile. Game changer.
There were aluminum benches to sit on. I was a student, sat in the lower level and even had support for my back. This was a lot better than the solid concrete of Archbold. I know there were parts of Archbold that had splinter prone wooden benches but I remember sitting on cold and sometimes soaking wet concrete. When it rained, which of course happened a lot, I always seemed to sit in the path of a temporary stream that whistled between my legs. So this was the height of luxury to me.
The other thing I remember was the heat. It was a hot night, it was really humid and with the place absolutely packed, it was extremely uncomfortable. I was part of the student section and we all wanted to make a statement about supporting the team so we stood all game and screamed our lungs out. I was covered in sweat 5 minutes into the game and stayed that way all game long.
I don’t remember bands or a lot going on outside the dome on opening night. All the news crews were out there making live reports. I turned down a chance to be interviewed a couple of times. They were desperate to talk to someone, even a 19 year old kid.
There is a picture in the south hallway near the southeast corner of the Dome, on the lower level that shows Lee Alexander, Hugh Carey, Melvin Holm and Melvin Eggers (I think this is right; going off my memory). They were the big dignitaries that night. I believe all of them spoke. Lee was the mayor. I don’t think he played any role in the contraction or financing of the Dome but was always glad to make an appearance and give a speech.
Holm was the outgoing CEO of Carrier, which was about to be purchased by UTC. His last major act as the CEO was to promise money for a naming gift, money that was desperately needed to close a big money crunch and make the building of the Dome possible.
Carey was the NYS governor who was up for election the year the dome was proposed and ended up promising big money to help build it to take and get some votes from CNY, which was then a largely conservative area of the state. He kept his promise and got re-elected.
Those two were key figures in making an unlikely idea proposed at the last minute (all proposals up to that point were for locations off campus; at the NYS fair, in Van Buren, I think a location in East Syracuse was also discussed and probably others). They made buried speeches and got some applause.
I was proud for my school and my city. I was excited for the future. We went from the oldest and most unattractive facility for football in the East to most modern (and I think best) over night. Recruiting was going to get better! We were going to become a power in the East again! Hope was restored!
And I was dehydrated. Really dehydrated.