MIAMI ORANGE BOWL

The 'Miami Orange Bowl' is a stadium in the City of Miami, Florida, west of Downtown in Little Havana. It is the home stadium for the University of Miami Hurricanes football team and the temporary home of the Florida International University Golden Panthers for the 2007 football season while the FIU Stadium undergoes expansion.
In the past, it also hosted the Miami Dolphins until the opening of then Joe Robbie Stadium in 1987. The stadium was renamed in 1959 for the Orange Bowl Classic college football game, which was played at the Orange Bowl following every season from 1937 to 1995, although it has been played at Dolphin Stadium since 1996, save for the January 1999 contest between Florida and Syracuse. The Minor League Baseball Miami Marlins played certain games in the Orange Bowl from 1956 to 1960.
Its future is now uncertain as the University of Miami has announced that they will move out of the Orange Bowl after the 2007 season and begin play at Dolphin Stadium in 2008 in a 25-year deal. Future of Orange Bowl in doubt, BBC Sport, 21 August 2007.

Contents

History

University of Miami

Hurricane fans opposing move

Stadium events

Hurricane Wilma

References

External links

History

The stadium was built by the City of Miami Public Works Department. Construction began in 1936 and was completed in December 1937. The stadium opened for Miami Hurricanes football on December 10, 1937. From 1926 to 1937 the University of Miami played in a stadium near Tamiami Park and also at Moore Park until the Orange Bowl (previously named Burdine Stadium) was built.
The Orange Bowl was originally named after Roddy Burdine, one of Miami's pioneers. The original stadium consisted of the two sideline lower decks. Seating was added in the endzones in the 1940s, and by the end of the 1950s the stadium was double-decked on the sidelines. The AFL expansion Miami Dolphins played their first regular season game ever in the stadium on September 2, 1966. The west endzone upper deck section was then added in the 1960s, bringing the stadium to its peak capacity of 80,010. In 1977 the permanent seats in the east endzone were removed, and further upgrades have brought the stadium to its current capacity and design. The city skyline can be seen to the east through the open end, over the modern scoreboard and palm trees. The surface has always been natural grass, except for a time in the 1970s. PolyTurf, an artificial turf similar to AstroTurf, was installed for the 1970 football season. It was removed and replaced with a type of natural grass known as Prescription Athletic Turf for the 1976 football season after Super Bowl X.
Under the leadership of Hall of Fame Football Coach Don Shula, the Miami Dolphins enjoyed an enviable winning record of games played in the Orange Bowl against rival teams in the original NFL AFC Eastern Division. Under Coach Shula, the Miami Dolphins were an aggregate 57-9-1 (60-10-1 including playoff contests) against the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts (15-3), the Boston/NewEngland Patriots (15-1), the Buffalo Bills (16-1) and the New York Jets (13-4-1).[1] The playoff results are: AFC Championship games: (1971, Miami 21, Baltimore 0); (1982, Miami 14, NY Jets 0) and (1985, New England 31, Miami 14) and AFC First Round game (1982 strike shortened season, Miami 28, New England 13).
Notable winning streaks during the Shula-era Dolphins in the Orange Bowl include a 13-0 streak against the Buffalo Bills and a 15-0 streak against the New England Patriots, Also of note, the Miami Dolphins enjoyed a record 31-game home winning streak from 1971 to 1975. This 31-game streak includes four playoff wins. The Dolphins have not enjoyed the same level of success in their new Dolphins Stadium.
The Orange Bowl is famously the site of the NCAA's longest college football winning streak. Between 1985 and 1994, the University of Miami Hurricanes won 58 straight home games at the Bowl. The stadium's home field advantage used to include a steel structure that fans would set to rumbling by stomping their feet. Recent concrete reinforcement has silenced the rumble. Still present is the advantage of the West End Zone, which has a relatively narrow radius that amplifies fan noise. The West End Zone was a factor in the Wide Right (Florida State) curse, in which the Florida State University Seminoles lost a series of close games due to missed field goals.
In addition to football, the stadium also hosts concerts and other public events. The stadium has a regular capacity of 72,319 orange seats, and can seat up to 82,000 for concerts and other events where additional seating can be placed on the playing field.

University of Miami

The City of Miami recently embarked on a plan to extensively renovate the stadium. However, those plans fell by the wayside as Miami focused on attempting to keep the Florida Marlins in town, forcing the Hurricanes to threaten to move to Dolphin Stadium located in Miami Gardens if a plan to renovate the stadium were not in place within 45 days. Some feared that Miami would permit the college to leave, only to tear down the Orange Bowl and replace it with the new stadium for the Marlins. [2]
That fear came true as Paul Dee, Athletic Director for the University of Miami, announced that the Hurricanes would be moving to Dolphin Stadium for the 2008 season. Dee and university president Donna Shalala made the announcement during a press conference at the Hecht Athletic Center on August 21, 2007. The University has tentatively agreed to a 25-year contract to play at Dolphin Stadium. According to Miami City Manager Pete Hernandez, this now puts the Orange Bowl back in the forefront as a possible site for a new Marlins stadium. The hope is that talks resume soon on that possibility.^[1]

Hurricane fans opposing move

Many Hurricane fans support a reversal of the decision to move stadium locations and prefer maintaining the Orange Bowl as the Hurricanes' home field, in part because it is closer to the campus and also because the stadium has been a large part of the Hurricanes' successful football tradition.

Stadium events

The stadium has hosted several soccer matches in recent years, including Marlboro Soccer Cup, an AC Milan Soccer Game, CONCACAF Gold Cup matches, and some 1996 Summer Olympics soccer games. In 1987, an NWA Great American Bash wrestling supercard was held in the stadium. An exhibition Canadian Football League game was played in 1995 with the Birmingham Barracudas versus the Baltimore Stallions, the Stallions won 37-0, to judge if Miami could have supported an CFL team. The attendance was disappointing. The team would have been called the Miami Manatees.
The Orange Bowl is one of two stadiums to host five NFL Super Bowls (II, III, V, X and XIII). (The other is the Rose Bowl. The Louisiana Superdome has hosted the most Super Bowls, six.) The former college football all-star game, the North-South Shrine Game, was held there from 1948 to 1973, and the NFL Pro Bowl was held there in 1975.
Of the three Super Bowls played in the Orange Bowl after the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, the AFC had a 3-0 record. Prior to the merger, the NFL Green Bay Packers beat the Oakland Raiders 33-14 in SB II and ironically, the NY Jets defeated Don Shula's Baltimore Colts 16-7 in SB III. Interestingly enough, the Baltimore Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys in SB V, the year after Coach Shula left the Colts to coach the Miami Dolphins.
The stadium has also has hosted many non-athletic events such as Monster Jam, car shows, and various concerts. Past performers include the Eagles, The Rolling Stones, Genesis, Metallica, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Pink Floyd, The Police, and Prince. Notably, Prince chose the stadium as the venue for the grand finale of his Purple Rain Tour in April 1985. [4] In honor of the occasion, the stadium was rechristened the "Purple Bowl."
In addition, the site was used for the Haiti national football team for their "home" matches due to violent flare-ups in Haiti resulting from political instability.

Hurricane Wilma

In 2005, Hurricane Wilma caused structural damage to the stadium which rekindled discussion of tearing down the aging facility. The damage has since been repaired. The Orange Bowl, however, was recently voted in an ESPN national online poll as the best stadium to play in.

References

1. Miami Leaving Orange Bowl; Will Play in Dolphin Stadium, ESPN.com, accessed 21 August 2007 [3]

External links

★ Orange Bowl Official Web Site

★ Orange Bowl Redevelopment Web site

★ University of Miami Hurricanes Orange Bowl Stadium Page

★ Aerial Views of Miami Orange Bowl Stadium

★ Orange Bowl Seating Chart

★ Future of the Stadium after the Hurricanes leave