# Alumni Stadium

Alumni Stadium is a college football stadium located on the lower campus of Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. It is approximately 6 miles (9.7 km) west of downtown Boston, located just inside the Boston city limits near the border with Newton. It is the home of the Boston College Eagles football program and also hosts lacrosse games on occasion. Its present seating capacity is 44,500.

## History

Alumni Field, Boston College's first stadium, opened in 1915 and was located just south of Gasson Quadrangle, on the site of the present Stokes Hall, an academic building for the humanities that opened in 2013. Before the building of Stokes, the area was known as The Dustbowl, a nickname that originated as a description of Alumni Field in the years when it was intensely used as a practice field, a baseball diamond, and a running track. Formally dedicated "as a memorial to the boys that were" on October 30, 1915, Alumni Field and its distinctive "maroon goal-posts on a field of green" were hailed in that evening's edition of the Boston Saturday Evening Transcript as "one of the sights in Boston." The original grandstands, which could accommodate 2,200 spectators in 1915, were enlarged over the subsequent years to 25,000. Nonetheless Alumni Field often proved too small for BC football games, which were frequently held at Fenway Park, and later Braves Field, beginning in the 1930s.
On September 21, 1957, Alumni Stadium opened on Boston College's lower campus. The new stadium incorporated a football field encircled by a regulation track with a seating capacity of 26,000. The dedication game, a match-up with the Midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy, was orchestrated with the help of Boston College benefactor and then U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy. Kennedy, who received his honorary degree at Commencement Exercises in Alumni Field the previous year, returned to Alumni Stadium on a number of occasions over the course of his political career, including to give the 1963 Convocation Address, one of his last public appearances prior to his assassination on November 22, 1963.
Alumni Stadium has hosted numerous intellectual and cultural luminaries, religious leaders and heads of state as the venue for Boston College's annual Commencement Exercises since 1957. In addition to being the permanent home of the Boston College football team, Alumni Stadium hosted the Boston Patriots of the American Football League during the 1969 season.
As the home of the Boston College Eagles, Alumni Stadium has been the site of numerous notable moments in Boston College football history. On September 17, 2005, Alumni Stadium hosted BC's inaugural game as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Alumni Stadium in its present form has hosted 40 sellout crowds of 44,500 or greater, most recently on November 9, 2024 against Syracuse.

### Renovations

In 1971, the stadium was expanded to 32,000 seats and artificial turf and lights were installed. The stadium was rebuilt again in 1988, adding near-identical upper decks on each sideline as well as a new press box, built into the new Conte Forum.
The stadium underwent a major renovation, bringing it into its current form, before the 1994 season. The track was eliminated, and the entire lower bowl was removed, leaving only the two sideline upper decks intact, which are structurally a part of Conte Forum and the Beacon Street parking garage. A new rectangular lower bowl was installed, fully enclosing the stadium for the first time and bringing seats closer to the sidelines. Matching upper decks were installed above each end zone, and new scoreboards were installed.
Since 1998, a 65-foot (20 m)-high bubble of inflatable vinyl has covered the stadium from December to March and allowed the field to be used as a winter practice facility. The field surface itself was converted to FieldTurf before the 2004 season. In the summer before the 2005 football season, the $27 million Yawkey Athletics Center opened at Alumni Stadium's north end zone, and the logo of the Atlantic Coast Conference was added to the FieldTurf. For the 2012 season, Alumni Stadium was outfitted with new FieldTurf. New scoreboards, ribbon boards, and lights were installed before the 2024 season.