Zable Stadium Walter J . Zable Stadium at Cary Field , named for Walter J . Zable , former member of the College of William & Mary Board of Visitors , is located in Williamsburg , Virginia and is the home of the William and Mary Tribe football team . It is located centrally in the William & Mary campus , adjoining the Sadler Center ( formerly the University Center ) building and situated on Richmond Road . The stadium is used for football and track & field . It has an official capacity of 12 , 259 fans . The attendance figures for William and Mary football games are usually inexact , however , since students are not counted among the official results in an accurate fashion . The area of Cary Field behind the stadium was the baseball field for William and Mary until the opening of Plumeri Park in 1999 . History . The Stadium at Cary Field was constructed in 1935 at a cost of $ 138 , 395 under a grant from President Franklin D . Roosevelt ' s Public Works Administration . The namesakes of the stadium are Walter ( W & M class of 1937 ) and Betty Zable ( class of 1940 ) , who made a $ 10 million contribution to William & Mary in 1990 , adding the Zable moniker to the existing Cary Field . The construction of the stadium is distinct in that the primary entrance to the stadium is at the 50 yard line on one side , eliminating prime midfield seating locations . In order to secure the stadium , college officials had it designed for agriculture expositions with a cattle entrance at midfield . No expositions , however , were ever held , but the midfield seats remained lost . The first football game played at the stadium was the 1935 season opener , a 0 - 0 tie against the University of Virginia . Zable himself played in the game . Recent developments . The largest crowd in Zable Stadium history was more than 19 , 000 in the 1949 loss against the University of North Carolina . Zable did not feature permanent lighting for evening games until 2005 , when gifts of $ 650 , 000 allowed the construction of lights over the stadium . The gifts were spurred by the 2004 NCAA Division I - AA playoff game that William & Mary hosted against James Madison University . The game was nationally televised by ESPN2 , and portable lights were brought in on trucks to allow the game to be played in ESPN ' s evening time slot . The game featured the largest crowd in recent Zable history and created a demand for additional night games . Previously , displeasure from the Williamsburg community over night games had kept the demand for lights to a minimum . In 2006 , Cary Field ' s natural grass surface was replaced with FieldTurf pro , the same turf used in over twenty NFL football stadiums . The project cost an estimated $ 840 , 000 . A new scoreboard was recently installed at Zable Stadium at an estimated cost of $ 800 , 000 . The scoreboard is 53 ’ - 3 ” wide × 27 ’ - 5 ” high and features video replay capabilities . In March 2013 , the College announced that it was pursuing a project to expand the seating capacity of the stadium by 3 , 330 seats for the 2015 football season by constructing an elevated section above the existing stands on the west side of the stadium . As part of the plan , luxury suites and a new press box would be added . The project is estimated to cost $ 35 million , but has yet to be officially confirmed by the William & Mary athletics department .