LA Coliseum

Today, September 18, 2016, will be the first home game (versus the Seattle Seahawks) of the 2016 season for the new Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League (NFL).  They will play their home games this year at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.  For the last twenty-one years (1995-2015), the Rams represented the City of St. Louis, Missouri.  From 1946 to 1994, the Rams played in Southern California, mostly at the Coliseum in Los Angeles.  The Ram franchise originated in the City of Cleveland, Ohio in 1936 and was named after the nickname of Fordham University in New York City.  They remained in Cleveland for ten years.  So the Rams now return to LA, where they have spent the majority of their eighty years of existence.

In August of 1972, on a trip to Los Angeles, I went to the Coliseum to watch the Rams play the Oakland Raiders in a preseason football game.  The experience reminded me of the many times I had watched sporting events on TV at this ancient and beautiful edifice.      

Construction started on the Coliseum in December of 1921 and was completed in May of 1923.  The Memorial reference is to the Los Angeles veterans of World War I. 

The inaugural event at the Coliseum was a football game on October 6, 1923 when the University of Southern California (USC) Trojans defeated the Pomona College Sagehens, 23-7.  The USC campus is basically adjacent to the Coliseum and the Trojans have played their home football games there ever since.  Such as the legendary movie star, John Wayne, the former New York Football Giant great, Frank Gifford, and the infamous Orenthal James (OJ) Simpson played football for USC on the turf at the Coliseum.  From 1928 to 1981, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Bruins also played their home games there.  I believe the first time I ever saw a football game at the Coliseum on TV (in the 1950s) was the annual end of season inter-city clash between USC and UCLA.

In the summer of 1932, the Coliseum (with a seating capacity of 101,574) served as the site of the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympic games.  In addition, track and field, gymnastics, field hockey, and equestrian events were also held there.  The Olympics returned to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the 1984 summer games.

As I previously mentioned, the former Cleveland Rams relocated to the Coliseum in 1946 (becoming the Los Angeles Rams) and stayed until they moved to nearby Anaheim, California in 1980.  The Los Angeles Dons of the defunct All-American Football Conference also played there from 1946 to 1949 before merging with the Rams.  In 1960, the Los Angeles Chargers of the American Football League (AFL) played in the Coliseum in their initial year of existence before relocating to San Diego in 1961. 

In 1958, the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team relocated to Los Angeles and played their home games at the Coliseum through the 1961 season.  Playing baseball in a traditional football stadium created some weird problems.  The left field fence was only 251 feet from home plate.  As a result, Baseball Commisioner Ford Frick ordered the Dodgers to install a 42 foot screen in left field to make a home run a little more difficult.  In the first week of the 1958 season, twenty-four home runs were hit over the screen.  Major League Baseball passed a subsequent rule requiring any future stadium to measure at least 325 feet down the left and right field lines.  The three Dodger home games at the Coliseum in the 1959 World Series (defeated the Chicago White Sox in six games) each had 92,706 fans in attendance, a Major League Baseball record.

In the summer of 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy delivered his acceptance speech for the Democratic Party presidential nomination at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. 

In January of 1967, the first NFL-AFL Championship football game (soon to be known as Super Bowl I) was played at the Coliseum between the NFL champion Green Bay Packers and the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs.  The Packers won 35-10.

In 1982, the Oakland Raiders moved to the Coliseum and became the Los Angeles Raiders.  They stayed until 1994 before returning to Oakland.

The Rolling Stones held a concert at the Coliseum in 1981.  Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band performed there in 1985.  Wrestlemania VII was held at the Coliseum in 1991.  It continues to be a venue for a multitude of events other than football. 

Long live this beautiful and historic stadium!  Good luck, Rams.