The
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is a large outdoor
sports stadium in the University Park
neighborhood of Los Angeles, California
at Exposition Park that is home
to the University of
Southern California Trojans football team. It is located next to
the Los Angeles Memorial Sports
Arena
adjacent to the campus of the University of
Southern California
(USC). The stadium is jointly owned by the
State of California,
Los
Angeles County, and the City of Los Angeles; it is currently
managed by the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, which has
board members drawn from the three ownership interests.
The Coliseum has the distinction of being the only stadium in the
world to host the
Olympic Games twice,
in
1932 and
1984. It is also the only Olympic
stadium to have also hosted
Super Bowls
and
World Series. It was declared a
National Historic
Landmark on July 27, 1984, the day before the opening ceremony
of the
1984 Summer
Olympics.
Present use
The Coliseum is now primarily the home of the USC Trojan football
team. During the recent stretch of its success in football, most of
USC's regular home games, especially the alternating games with
rivals
UCLA and
Notre Dame, attract a
capacity 92,000 person crowd, although they regularly drew far less
during the 1990s. The current official capacity of the Coliseum is
93,607. The Coliseum Commission also rents the Coliseum to various
events, including international
soccer games,
musical concerts and other large outdoor events.
Celebrating their 50th anniversary in Los Angeles, the
Dodgers and
Boston Red Sox played an exhibition game here
on March 29, 2008; a Los Angeles and MLB record for attendance was
broken, where 115,300 people attended the game.
On June 17, 2009, the Coliseum played host to the
2009 NBA World Champion Los Angeles Lakers as the end point of
the championship parade.
Player and coach speeches were given at the
Coliseum following a procession that began at the Staples Center
.
Olympic Cauldron
The Olympic Cauldron (also known as the Olympic Torch) was built
for the stadium's two Olympic games. It is still lit during the
fourth quarter of USC football games, and other special occasions
(e.g., when the Olympics are being held in another city). At the
Los Angeles Dodgers Fiftieth Anniversary Game on March 29, 2008,
the torch was lit for the ThinkCure! charity ceremony, while
Neil Diamond's "
Sweet Caroline" was played and the majority
of the attendees turned on their complimentary souvenir keychain
flashlights. In 2004, the cauldron was lit non-stop for seven days
in tribute to President
Ronald Reagan,
who had died; and it was lit again in April 2005 following the
death of
Pope John Paul II, who
had celebrated Mass at the Coliseum during his visit to Los Angeles
in 1987. The torch was also lit for over a week following the
September 11 attacks in 2001.
It was lit for several days following the Space Shuttle Challenger
disaster in 1986.
History
Structure
The Coliseum was commissioned in 1921 as a memorial to veterans of
World War I (rededicated to veterans of
all wars in 1968). The official ground breaking ceremony took place
on December 21, 1921 with work being completed in just over 16
months, on May 1, 1923. Designed by
John and Donald Parkinson, the
original bowl's initial construction costs were $954,873. When the
Coliseum opened in 1923, it was the largest stadium in Los Angeles
with a capacity of 76,000. However, with the arrival of the
Olympics only ten years later, the stadium was expanded to 101,574
and the now-signature torch was added. For a time it was known as
Olympic Stadium. The Olympic cauldron torch which burned through
both Games remains above the peristyle at the east end of the
stadium as a reminder of this, as do the Olympic rings symbols over
one of the main entrances. The football field runs east-west with
the press box on the south side of the stadium. The scoreboard and
video screen that tower over the peristyle date back to 1983; they
replaced a smaller scoreboard installed in 1972, which in turn
supplanted the 1937 model, one of the first electric scoreboards in
the nation. Over the years new light towers have been placed along
the north and south rims. The analog clock and thermometer over the
office windows at either end of the peristyle were installed in
1956. Between the peristyle arches at the east end are plaques
recognizing many of the memorable events and participants in
Coliseum history, including a full list of 1932 and 1984 Olympic
gold medalists.
A pair of life-sized
bronze nude
statues of male and female athletes atop a 20,000
pound (9,000 kg) post-and-lintel frame formed the
Olympic
Gateway created by
Robert
Graham for the
1984 games.
The statues, modeled on
water polo player
Terry Schroeder and long jumper from
Guyana,
Jennifer Innis, who
participated in the games, were noted for their anatomical
accuracy.
Renovations

The Coliseum under construction in
1922
For many years the Coliseum was capable of seating over 100,000
spectators, and the capacity for the 1984 Olympics configuration
was approximately 90,500. During the 1960s and 70s, it was common
practice to shift the playing field to the closed end of the
stadium and install end zone bleachers in front of the peristyle,
reducing the capacity to 71,500. With the upcoming 1984 Summer
Olympic Games, a new track was installed and the playing field
permanently placed inside it. The large
seating capacity made the venue problematic
for the Raiders, as it meant that the vast majority of their home
games could not be shown locally due to NFL "
blackout" rules (league rules do not
allow home games to be televised locally unless the game sells out
at least 72 hours prior to its scheduled kickoff). Furthermore, the
combination of the stadium's large, relatively shallow design,
along with the presence of the track between the playing field and
the stands, meant that some of the original end zone seats were
essentially away from the field by the equivalent length of another
football field. To address these and other problems, the Coliseum
underwent a $15 million renovation before the 1993 football season
which included the following:
- The field was lowered by and fourteen new rows of seats
replaced the running track, bringing the first row of seats closer
to the playing field (a maximum distance of at the eastern 30
yard-line).
- A portable seating section was built between the eastern
endline and the peristyle bleachers (the stands are removed for
concerts and similar events).
- A modernization of the locker rooms and public restrooms.
- The bleachers were replaced with individual seating.
Additionally, for Raiders home games, tarpaulins were placed over
seldom-sold sections, reducing
seating
capacity to approximately 65,000. The changes were anticipated
to be the first of a multi-stage renovation designed by
HNTB that would have turned the Coliseum into a
split-bowl stadium with two levels of mezzanine suites (the
peristyle end would have been left as is). After the 1994
Northridge Earthquake, however, $93
million was required from government agencies (including the
Federal Emergency
Management Agency) to repair earthquake damage, and the
renovations demanded by the Raiders were put on hold indefinitely.
The
Raiders then redirected their efforts toward a proposed stadium at
Hollywood Park in Inglewood
before electing to move back to the Oakland-Alameda
County Coliseum
prior to the 1995 season. The last element
of the Northridge Earthquake repairs was the replacement of the
condemned press box with a new press box in 1995.
Events
Many events have been held at the Coliseum over the years; below
are some of the more notable.
1920s
On October
6, 1923, Pomona
College
and USC played in the inaugural game at the Los
Angeles Coliseum, with the Trojans prevailing 23–7. Located
across the street from Exposition Park, USC's agreement to play all
its home games at the Coliseum was a contributing factor to its
original construction. From 1928 until their departure in 1982, the
UCLA Bruins also played home games at the Coliseum. When USC and
UCLA played each other, the "home" team fans sat on the North side
of the stadium, and the "visiting" team fans sat on the South
(press box) side of the stadium. For many years, both teams wore
their home football jerseys for the
UCLA-USC rivalry football games.
1930s–1940s

The front of the Olympic Stadium,
including the two bronze statues.
In 1932, the Coliseum hosted the
1932 Summer Olympic Games; the first of two
Olympiads hosted at the stadium. The Coliseum served as the site of
primary track and field events as well as opening and closing
ceremonies. The 1932 games marked the introduction of the
Olympic Village as well as the victory
podium.
The former
Cleveland Rams of the National Football League relocated
to the Coliseum in 1946, becoming
the Los Angeles Rams; but the team later relocated again, first to
Anaheim
in 1980, then to
St. Louis,
Missouri
in 1995. The
Los Angeles Dons of the
All-America Football
Conference played in the Coliseum from 1946 to 1949, when the
Dons franchise merged with its NFL cousins just before the two
leagues merged.
In 1960 the American Football League's Los Angeles Chargers played at the
Coliseum before relocating to San Diego
the next year.
1950s-1960s

A Dodgers game at the Coliseum; note
the shape of the field.
Among
other sporting events held at the Coliseum over the years was
Major League Baseball, which
was held at the Coliseum when the Los Angeles Dodgers of the National League relocated from Brooklyn, New York
in 1958.
The
Dodgers played here until Dodger Stadium
was completed in time for the 1962 season, despite the fact that the
Coliseum's one-tier, oval bowl shape was extremely poorly suited to
baseball. Foul territory was almost
nonexistent down the first base line, but was very expansive down
the third base line with a very large
backstop for the catcher. Some seats were as far as
from the plate.
The left field fence was only 251 feet (77 m) from the plate
because the field was just barely large enough to fit a baseball
diamond.
Baseball
Commissioner Ford Frick ordered the
Dodgers to erect a screen in left field to prevent pop flies from
becoming home runs. At its highest point at the foul pole, the
fence was high.
[67299] The cables, towers, girders and wires were in
play. Frick originally wanted the Dodgers to build a second screen
in the stands, from the plate. A ball hit to left would have to
clear both screens to be a home run; if it cleared the first
screen, it would be a ground-rule double. However, the state's
earthquake laws barred construction of a second screen.
Unable to compel the Dodgers to fix the situation, the major
leagues passed a note to Rule 1.04 stating that any ball field
constructed after June 1, 1958, must provide a minimum distance of
down each foul line. Also, when the expansion
Los Angeles Angels joined the
American League for 1961, Frick
rejected their original request to use the Coliseum.
In
1959, the screen figured in the
National League pennant race. The
Milwaukee Braves were playing the Dodgers in
the Coliseum on September 15, 1959, and
Joe
Adcock hit a ball that cleared the screen but hit a steel
girder behind it and got stuck in the mesh. According to the ground
rules, this should have been a home run. However, the umpires ruled
it a ground-rule double. Then the fans shook the screen, causing
the ball to fall into the seats. The umpires changed the call to a
homer, only to change their minds again and rule it a ground-rule
double. Adcock was left stranded on second. The game was tied at
the end of nine innings and the Dodgers won it in the tenth inning.
[67300] At the end of the regular season, the
Dodgers and Braves finished in a tie. The Dodgers won the ensuing
playoff and went on to win the
World
Series. If Adcock's hit had been ruled a home run, the Braves
may have won the game and could have gone on to win the pennant by
one game.
Although ill-suited as a Major League Baseball field, with its left
field line at 251 feet (mentioned above) and power alley at 320
feet (98 m), it was ideally suited for large paying crowds. Each of
the three games of the
1959 World
Series played there drew over 92,706 fans, a
record unlikely to
be seriously threatened anytime soon, given the smaller seating
capacities of today's baseball parks. A May 1959 exhibition game
between the Dodgers and the
New York
Yankees in honor of legendary catcher
Roy Campanella drew 93,103, the largest crowd
ever to see a baseball game in the Western Hemisphere until an
exhibition game in
2008 between the
Los Angeles Dodgers and the
Boston Red
Sox to mark the 50th anniversary of
Major League Baseball in Los Angeles.
The Coliseum also hosted the second
1959
MLB All-Star
Game. Also, from baseball's point of view, the locker rooms
were huge, because they were designed for
football (not baseball) teams.
The Coliseum was also the site of John F. Kennedy's memorable
acceptance speech at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. It
was during that speech that Kennedy first used the term "the
New Frontier."
The Rams hosted the
1949,
1951 and the
1955 NFL championship games at
the Coliseum. The Coliseum was the site of the very first
NFL-AFL Championship Game in January 1967, an
event since renamed the
Super Bowl. It
also hosted the
Super Bowl in 1973.
The venue was also the site of the NFL
Pro
Bowl from
1951-
1972 and again in
1979.
1970s-1980s
In July 1972, the Coliseum hosted the Super Bowl of
Motocross. The event was the first motocross race
held inside a stadium . It has evolved into the
AMA Supercross championship held in stadiums across
the United States and Canada.
In 1973,
Evel Knievel used the entire
distance of the stadium to jump 50 stacked cars at the stadium.
Knievel launched his motorcycle from atop one end of the Coliseum,
jumping the cars in the center of the field, and stopping high atop
the other end. The jump was filmed by ABC Wide World of Sports.
Also in 1973, the Coliseum was host to Super Bowl VII which saw the
(AFC) champion Miami Dolphins (17–0) defeat the (NFC) champion
Washington Redskins (13-4), 14–7, and become the first, and
presently the only team in the NFL to complete a perfect,
undefeated season.
The Los Angeles Rams played their home games in the L.A. Coliseum
until 1979, when they moved to Orange County prior to the 1980 NFL
Season. They hosted the NFC Championship Game in 1975 & 1978 in
which they lost both times to the Dallas Cowboys by lopsided
margins.
The Coliseum was also home to the
USFL's
Los Angeles Express between 1983 and
1985. In this capacity, the stadium also is the site of the longest
professional
American football
game in history; a triple-overtime game on June 30, 1984 (a few
weeks before the start of the 1984 Summer Olympics) between the
Express and the
Michigan Panthers,
which was decided on a 24-yard game winning touchdown by Mel Gray
of the Express, 3:33 into the third overtime to give Los Angeles a
27–21 win.
[67301]
In
1982 the former
Oakland Raiders moved in.
The same year, UCLA
decided to move out, relocating its home games to the Rose
Bowl
in Pasadena
.
Also in 1982, the
Individual World Speedway
Final was held for the first and, to this day, only time in the
USA. The event saw American
Bruce
Penhall retain his title in a meeting that involved one of the
most controversial incidents in the history of World Speedway, when
Penhall and Englishman
Kenny Carter
collided.
Los Angeles hosted the
1984 Summer
Olympics, and the Coliseum became the first stadium to host the
Olympics twice; again serving as the primary track and field venue
and site of the opening and closing ceremonies.
Bruce Springsteen played four
consecutive sold-out nights at the Coliseum in the fall of 1985 as
the culmination of his landmark
Born in the U.S.A. Tour.
Black
Sabbath played to a sellout audience on July 26, 1980.
Van Halen also soldout the Coliseum during their
1988
OU812 Tour better known as the
Monsters of Rock Tour
1988. Other notable concerts include
The Rolling Stones,
The Who,
Pink Floyd,
The Grateful Dead, and
U2 (as part of
the Joshua
Tree Tour).
1990s-2000s
In
1995, the Raiders left Los
Angeles and returned to Oakland, leaving the Coliseum without a
professional football tenant for the first time since the close of
World War II.
The most recent pro football tenant has been the short-lived
Los Angeles Xtreme, the first and
only champion of the
XFL.
The stadium hosted several matches, including the semi-finals and
final, of the
1991 CONCACAF Gold
Cup soccer tournament. The
United States national
team beat
Honduras in the final. The
Coliseum also staged the final match of the Gold Cup in the
1996,
1998, and
2000 tournaments.
The stadium hosted the
K-1
Dynamite!! USA mixed martial arts event. The promoters
claimed that 54,000 people attended the event, which would have set
a new attendance record for a mixed martial arts event in the
United States, however other officials estimated the crowd between
20,000 and 30,000.
In May 1959, the Dodgers had hosted an exhibition game against the
reigning World Series champion
New York
Yankees at the Coliseum, a game which drew over 93,000 people.
The Yankees won that game 6-2. As part of their west coast 50th
anniversary celebration in 2008, the Dodgers again hosted an
exhibition game against the reigning World Series Champions, the
Boston Red Sox. The middle game of a
three-game set in Los Angeles, held on March 29, 2008, was also won
by the visitors, by the relatively low score of 7-4, given the
layout of the field - Red Sox catcher
Jason Varitek had joked that he expected
scores in the 80s.
As previously mentioned in the 1950s-1960s section, during
1958-1961, the distance from home plate to the left field foul pole
was with a screen running across the close part of left field. Due
to the intervening addition of another section of seating rimming
the field, the 2008 grounds crew had much less space to work with,
and the result was a left field foul line only long, with a screen
which one Boston writer dubbed the "Screen Monster".
[67302] Even at that distance, 201 feet is also
short of the minimum legal home run distance. This being an
exhibition game, balls hit over the temporary screen were still
counted as home runs. There were only a couple of homers over the
screen, as pitchers adjusted (and
Manny
Ramirez did not play, although he ironically enough, would
later be traded to the Dodgers that season).
[67303] Net proceeds from the game, estimated
to be at $1 million (US) were to go to the ThinkCure charity.
[67304]
This diagram (
[67305]) illustrates the differences in the
dimensions between 1959 and 2008:
- 2008 - LF - LCF - CF - RCF - RF
- 1959 - LF - LCF - CF - RCF - RF
A sellout
crowd of 115,300 was announced, [67306] which set a Guiness World Record for attendance at
a baseball game, breaking the record set at a 1956 Summer Olympics baseball
demonstration game between teams from the USA and Australia at the
Melbourne
Cricket Ground
.
Beginning in June 2007, Insomniac Events has begun hosting their
annual Electronic Dance Music Festival known as
Electric Daisy Carnival on the
Coliseum grounds, also using nearby Exposition Park. 2007's show
brought in over 30,000 attendees and 2008's event brought in nearly
75,000 attendees. In 2009 it was expanded to a two day event, the
first day brought in 45,000 attendees, and the second night
featured 90,000. It is currently the biggest dance festival outside
Europe.
In 2006 the Coliseum Commission focused on signing a long-term
lease with USC; the school offered to purchase the facility from
the state but was turned down. After some at-time contentious
negotiations, with the university threatening in late 2007 to move
its home stadium to the Rose Bowl, the two sides signed a 25-year
lease in May 2008 giving the Coliseum Commission 8% of USC's ticket
sales, approximately $1.5 million a year, but commits the agency to
a list of renovations.
On June 23, 2008, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission
announced they are putting the
naming
rights of the Coliseum on the market, predicting a deal valued
at $6 million to $8 million a year. The funds would go towards
financing more than $100 million in renovations over the next
decade, including a new video board, bathrooms, concession areas
and locker rooms. Additional seating was included in the renovation
plans which increased the Coliseum's
seating capacity to 93,607 in September
2008.

The first game under the 2008 seating
configuration: a capacity 93,607 crowd attends Ohio State at
USC
On June 17, 2009, the Coliseum was the terminus for the
Los Angeles Lakers 2009 NBA Championship
victory parade. A crowd of over 90,000 attended the festivities, in
addition to the throngs of supporters who lined the 2-mile parade
route.
The Coliseum peristyle was redesigned in
purple and gold regalia to commemorate the team and the Lakers'
court was transported from Staples Center
to the Coliseum field to act as the stage.
Past
parades had ended at Staples Center, but due to the
newly-constructed L.A.
Live
complex, space was limited around the arena.
[67307]
The Coliseum and the NFL today
- See also: History of
National Football League in Los Angeles

Model of a proposed renovation to the
Coliseum.
There is much debate about the Coliseum's potential to be a modern
NFL venue. Although the Coliseum has significant historical value,
it is regarded by many as inadequate to be the home of a major
professional sports team. Since it was designed and built long
before the age of club seats, luxury boxes, and the other
revenue-generating amenities that modern football stadiums possess,
any professional team moving to the Coliseum will likely have to
perform extensive renovations.
Also, its status as a National Historic Landmark means
any renovations would have to be complementary to the most
identifiable parts of the building, a guideline that was not
followed during Soldier
Field
's renovations in 2002. Soldier Field was
stripped of its landmark status as a result of its renovation. Los
Angeles County voters have been generally uninterested in
appropriating tax revenue toward building a new stadium. Without
public funds, the costs of renovation would have to be borne by any
future tenant of the Coliseum. Because of the difficulties that the
NFL has had with trying to finance a renovated Coliseum, Rose Bowl
or brand new stadium, pro football has been absent from the
second-largest
media market in the
United States for over a decade. (The NFL was to award a franchise
to Los Angeles in 2002, but debate over a stadium, coupled with
Houston's aggressiveness, led the NFL
to award the franchise to Houston instead.)
On November 10, 2005 then-NFL commissioner
Paul Tagliabue announced that the NFL and
city officials have reached a preliminary agreement on bringing an
NFL team back to the Coliseum. However, no details have been
decided.
An article in the Wednesday, May 24, 2006 issue of the
Los Angeles Times made light of a
proposition to spend tens of millions of dollars of city funds to
heavily renovate the stadium, and indicated that the city may make
more than $100 million dollars in added funds available in the
future toward further renovation. City leaders who support the
spending despite significant disapproval from the local population
cite that the renovations are necessary to help attract a new NFL
team to the city, and that the tax revenue generated by the
presence of a new franchise team would eventually pay back the
investment many times over. Supporters further claim that the
addition of a new NFL team will increase employment in the area
adjacent to the stadium, a major concern because the area's
population is largely of low and middle income, that these people
will themselves help repay the expenditure by paying income taxes,
that the presence of a new team will stimulate the local economy by
making the area more attractive to new businesses (which themselves
could theoretically employ hundreds of tax payers) and that the
overall impact on the area will help to raise the area's real
estate values.
While a proposal to bring pro football back to the Los Angeles area
is still in the works, there has been little action taken in recent
times and doubts of bringing an NFL team to the coliseum or any
other venue in the region have risen. The Los Angeles Coliseum
Commission is currently in talks with USC to see if a long-term
master lease can be arranged with the university managing the
facility; however the university has stated it does not want an
opening for the NFL to come in later in such an agreement. In
recent years, USC has had a series of mostly one- and two-year
leases with the commission. In November 2007, Los Angeles Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa declared
that the policy of requiring the NFL to relocate to the Coliseum
will change and other options will be explored.
The Coliseum Commission's June 23, 2008 decision to sell naming
rights to the stadium further signals a likely end to the prospects
of the NFL's returning to the Coliseum as the prospect of a
naming-rights deal could have helped lure a new pro team.
Attendance records
Football (college)
Records differ between the 2006 USC football
media guide and 2006 UCLA football media guide.
(This may be due to only keeping records for "home" games until the
1950s.) The USC Media guide lists the top five record crowds as:
- 1. 104,953 — 1947 vs. Notre Dame (Highest attendance for a
football game in the Coliseum)
- 2. 103,303 — 1939 vs. UCLA
- 3. 103,000 — 1945 vs. UCLA
- 4. 102,548 — 1954 vs. UCLA
- 5. 102,050 — 1947 vs. UCLA
The UCLA Media guide does not list the 1939 game against USC, and
only lists attendance for the second game in 1945 for Coliseum
attendance records. These are the top three listed UCLA record
Coliseum crowds:
- 1. 102,548 — vs. USC 1954
- 2. 102,050 — vs. USC 1947
- 3. 100,333 — vs. USC (2nd game) 1945
Football (NFL)
The Los Angeles Rams played the San Francisco 49ers before an NFL
record attendance of 102,368 on November 10, 1957.
This stood as an
overall NFL regular season record until broken by a 2005 regular
season game between the Arizona
Cardinals and San Francisco
49ers at Azteca
Stadium
in Mexico City. Both records were
broken on [September 20, 2009 at the first regular season game at
Cowboys
Stadium
in Arlington, Texas
between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants.The Coliseum hosted
the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, later called the
Super Bowl. The first game had an
attendance of 61,946.
For Super Bowl
VII in 1973, the attendance was 90,182, a record that would
stand until Super Bowl XI at the
Rose Bowl
Stadium
. The 1975 NFC Championship Game between the
Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Cowboys had an attendance of 88,919,
still the largest crowd for an NFC Championship Game since
1970.
Baseball (MLB)
Contemporary baseball guides listed the theoretical baseball
seating capacity as 92,500.
Thousands of east-end seats were very far from home plate, and were
not sold unless needed. The largest regular season attendance was
78,672, the Dodgers' home debut in the Coliseum, against the
San Francisco Giants on April
18, 1958.
The May 7, 1959, exhibition game between the Los Angeles Dodgers
and the
1958 World Series Champion
New York Yankees, in honor of
crippled former Dodgers catcher
Roy
Campanella, drew 93,103, which was a Major League Baseball
record prior to 2008.
All three Dodgers home games in the
1959 World Series with the
Chicago White Sox exceeded 90,000
attendance. Game 5 drew 92,706 fans, a major league record for a
non-exhibition game.
The attendance for the exhibition game on March 29, 2008, between
the
Boston Red Sox and the
Los Angeles Dodgers, was 115,300,
setting a new
Guiness World
Record for attendance at a baseball game.
The previous record
of an estimated 114,000 was in the 1956 Summer Olympics at Melbourne
Cricket Ground
for an exhibition game between teams from the USA
Military and Australia.
Popular culture
Due to
its location near Hollywood
, the Coliseum has been used in hundreds of
commercials and movies over the years. Recently, a
computer-generated version of the Coliseum was used for
Budweiser beer TV commercials
during the 2006 FIFA World Cup and then the 2006 NFL playoffs, the
only change being that football players were on the field in the
NFL playoffs version, whereas soccer players were on the field in
the World Cup version. The stadium was shown filled to capacity,
with each spectator participating in a classic
card stunt. The imagery turned out to be a
gigantic beer bottle on one sideline, pouring into a gigantic beer
mug on the other sideline, whose contents were then shown being
drained by an invisible consumer. It was also used in the filming
of the last episode of the
second
season of the television show
24.. A 2007-08 season episode of
Shark was filmed at the
Coliseum. The Third episode of
Alias used the Coliseum as a Berlin
location. It was also used in an episode of
Beauty and the Geek (season 5)
where the participants took part in a game of
flag football with the Beauties winning.
The 1976 film
Two-Minute
Warning was set at the Coliseum.
The Coliseum is briefly seen in an episode of Beverly Hills 90210,
in which Steve Sanders attends a LA Raiders game.
The final scene of the film
Money
Talks was shot in the Coliseum.
The Coliseum served as the starting line for the 13th installment
of
CBS's
The
Amazing Race.
During the second season of the television show "24," the climactic
episodes were shot at the Coliseum.
The finale of the 1991 action film
The Last Boy Scout was set in the
Colesium.
Coliseum Court of Honor Plaques
"Commemorating outstanding persons or
events, athletic or otherwise, that have had a definite impact upon
the history, glory, and growth of the Los Angeles Memorial
Coliseum" (also the nearby Los Angeles
Memorial Sports Arena
) [67308]:
- 50th
Anniversary of Armistice, 1969
- John C. Argue, 2004
- Count Baillet-Latour,
1964
- Elgin Baylor, 2009
- Judge William M. Bowen, 1955
- Coliseum Commission (1933–1944), 1970
- Coliseum Commission (1945–1970), 1970
- Coliseum Commission (1971–1998), 1998
- Coliseum Commission – 1984 Olympics, 1984
- Coliseum Track and Field Records, 2002
- Community Development Association, 1932
- Pierre de Coubertin,
1958
- Newell "Jeff" Cravath, 1960
- Dean Bartlett Cromwell, 1963
- Mildred "Babe" Didrickson,
1961
- Dodgers World Series,
1961
- Earthquake Restoration, 1999
- John Ferraro, 2000
- John Jewett Garland,
1972
- William May Garland,
1949
- Billy Graham Crusade, 1965
- Kenneth F. Hahn, 1993
- Paul Hoy Helms, 1956
- Elmer "Gus" Henderson, 1971
- Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch,
2005
- Israeli Olympic Athletes
, 1984
- Howard Harding
Jones, 1955
- President John F. Kennedy,
1964
- Francis "Frank" Leahy, 1974
- John McKay,
2001
- Mercy Bowl, 1961
- James Francis Cardinal
McIntyre and Mary's Hour, 1966
- J.D. Morgan, 1984
- Jesse P. Mortensen, 1963
- Jim Murray, 1999
- William Henry "Bill"
Nicholas, 1990
- Walter F. O'Malley, 2008
- James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens,
1984
- Charles W. Paddock, 1955
- Pope John Paul II, 1987
- Rams Reunion, 2007
- Daniel Farrell Reeves,
1972
- Jackie Robinson, 2005
- Knute Rockne, 1955
- Pete Rozelle, 1998
- Henry Russell "Red"
Sanders, 1959
- W.R. "Bill"
Schroeder, 1990
- Vin Scully, 2008
- Andrew Latham "Andy" Smith,
1956
- William Henry "Bill"
Spaulding, 1971
- Amos Alonzo Stagg, 1965
- Brice Union Taylor, 1975
- Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner,
1956
- USC All-Americans (1880–2005), 2007
- Kenneth Stanley
Washington, 1972
- Jerry West, 2009
- John R. Wooden, 2008
See also
References
- Sam Farmer, Coliseum panel mulls options, Los Angeles
Times, June 6, 2007.
- media-newswire.com
- www.dailytrojan.com
- Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
- usctrojans.com - Facilities
- Stadiums of the NFL-Los Angeles Coliseum-Los
Angeles Rams/Raiders
- James P. Quirk and Rodney D. Fort, Pay Dirt:
The Business of Professional Team Sports, p. 438, ISBN
0691015740
- The First Supercross - Motorcyclist Online
- http://espn.go.com/abcsports/wwos/e_knievel.html
- Steve Springer, Morton doesn't last one round, Los Angeles
Times, June 3, 2007.
- Dylan Hernandez, Dodgers to play host to Red Sox in March,
Los Angeles Times, November 14, 2007.
- Electric Daisy Carnival
- Insomniac - Wide awake since 1993
- Matthew Futterman, Landmark's Name Is up for Sale, Wall Street
Journal, June 24, 2008, Accessed June 25, 2008.
- David Wharton and Sam Farmer - Mayor benches NFL plan, wants Trojans in
Coliseum. November 29, 2007. Los Angeles Times. Quote: With USC
threatening to move its home games to Pasadena's Rose Bowl, Los
Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for a long-term deal to
keep the Trojans in the Memorial Coliseum, saying for the first
time he has given up hope of the National Football League returning
to the aging stadium. "While I remain committed to bringing a
professional team to Los Angeles, it is time to read the
scoreboard," Villaraigosa said in a statement Wednesday. "The
Coliseum is no longer a viable option for the NFL."
- Tom Weir - Cardinals deep-six 49ers in historic tilt in
Mexico. October 3, 2005, USA Today. Total attendance for record
regular season game in Mexico City Azteca Stadium is 103,467
breaking the record of 102,368 who saw the Rams play the 49ers on
Nov. 10, 1957, at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
- Tom Weir - Mexico gets ready for football, not futbol.
September 25, 2005, USA Today. quote:A 1994 Houston-Dallas
exhibition drew a still-standing NFL record 112,376 to Estadio
Azteca
- Boxscore: Boston vs. LA Dodgers - March 29, 2008 |
MLB.com: News
- Steve Richardson, 24 Reasons to Shoot in LA, California Film
Industry Magazine, Accessed June 19, 2007.
External links