Kyle Field

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Kyle Field
Home of the 12th Man
October 12, 2006
Location	Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843
Broke ground	1927
Opened	1927
Owner	Texas A&M University
Operator	Texas A&M University
Surface	Grass
Construction cost	$300,000 USD (Original)
Tenants
Texas A&M Aggies (NCAA) (1927-Present)
Seats
82,600^[1]

Kyle Field is the football stadium located on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. It is the home to the Texas Aggie football team, and is known as "The Home of the 12th Man". It is the second largest American Football venue in Texas, ever since Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium^[2]^[3] added temporary bleachers.

Originally built in 1927 and 1929, Kyle Field was named for Edwin Jackson Kyle, who served as Texas A&M's dean of agriculture and athletic council president.

The stadium, originally a horseshoe surrounding a track, was expanded in 1967 to include two decks of grandstands, and the third decks were added to the east and west sides in 1980. The Aggies played on grass through the 1960s, Kyle Field switched to artificial turf in the early 1970s. Grass returned to Kyle Field in 1996.

In 1999 the $32.9 million Bernard C. Richardson Zone raised the capacity of Kyle Field to 82,600 making it the largest football stadium in the state of Texas at the time. "The Zone" also brings the fans in the north end zone 65 feet closer to the action on the field of play.

Kyle Field and its amenities continue to expand with the addition of the Bright Football Complex on the south end of the stadium. The facility opened in Fall 2003 and includes a players' lounge overlooking Kyle Field, dressing rooms, one of the largest training and rehabilitation facilities in the country, and a state-of-the-art academic center.^[4]

In late 2004, various expansion plans for Kyle Field were communicated to the public, with the final capacity possibly expanding to 115,000.^[5] The expansion plans are indefinite with university officials saying, “Anything could happen, but there’s no definitive time line to make this go. It’s a vision, and much of it depends on the success of the football program.”

During the 2006 offseason, Kyle Field underwent several renovations. The Jumbotron was removed and replaced by a Mitsubishi Diamond Vision high resolution LED videoboard, the second largest in college athletics and one of the ten largest in the world. The Texas A&M Athletic Department has dubbed the new screen "12th Man TV," although some fans refer to it as the "Gigatron." It has a total of 590,000 pixels on 154 video panels with a size of 74 ft x 54 ft. The athletic department also completed required updates to the media equipment to allow production and broadcast of high-definition video to the screen. In addition to the video board, new LED ribbon boards were installed along the facade of the second deck of the stadium. At 1,130 feet long, Kyle Field has the second longest ribbon board in the United States, behind Dolphin Stadium in Miami.^[6]

Kyle Field is often regarded as one of the most intimidating college football stadiums in the nation. CBS Sportsline listed Kyle Field as the nation's best with a perfect score under three categories (atmosphere, tradition, and fans.)^[7] It is ranked as the #4 stadium in the nation by The Sporting News^[8] and the most intimidating stadium in the Big 12 Conference^[9]. The college recruiting ranking service Rivals ranked Texas A&M as having the seventh-best home field advantage in the nation with Kyle Field.^[10] In the 1990s, Texas A&M boasted one of the nation's best home records at 55-4-1, including 31 straight wins at Kyle Field from 1990 to 1995 and 22 straight from 1996 to 2000.

Two of the most famous games in stadium history have come in the past few years. On November 26, 1999, just one week after the collapse of the Aggie Bonfire, the Aggies took on fifth-ranked Texas, beating the Longhorns 20-16 in an emotional comeback game before a then-record crowd of 86,128.^[11] (It is currently the seventh highest attendance figure for Kyle Field; the 2001 Texas game drew 87,555 for the current record.) On September 22, 2001, the first game for the Aggies after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the students organized a "Red, White and Blue-Out", where the entire stadium was divided by decks into red, white and blue sections for the game against Oklahoma State. It was one of the most well-known images of unity in the sports community following the tragedy. More than $150,000 was raised in shirt sales, which was donated to FDNY charities.^[12]

1 12th Man TV
2 Cross-Town Showdown
3 References
4 External links

[edit] 12th Man TV

12th Man TV

12th Man TV, also known as the "Gigatron", is the nickname given to Texas A&M University's high resolution scoreboard at Kyle Field.^[13] This 3,954 square foot Mitsubishi Diamond Vision LED video board (approximately 54' by 74') is the second largest video board in collegiate sports (behind the "Godzillatron" at the University of Texas)^[14] and ranks among the five largest in either collegiate or professional sports today. The 110 foot tall structure contains 154 video panels that combine to form 590,000 pixels of resolution. This does not meet the criteria for a high definition television which includes a minimum specification of 720x1280 for a total of at least 921,600 pixels.^[15] This addition to Kyle Field was accompanied by 1,130 feet of ribbon board that circle the stadium, the most in collegiate sports and second only to Dolphin Stadium in Miami. Construction was completed during the 2006 offseason, which also included video board upgrades to Reed Arena and Olsen Field.

[edit] Cross-Town Showdown

Kyle Field is also the venue for the "Cross-Town Showdown" high school football game between the Bryan Vikings and the A&M Consolidated Tigers. Traditionally the last game of each team's football schedule, beginning in the 2006 season, Texas A&M University requested that the game be held earlier in the year so not to interfere with Aggie games. Arguably the most popular game of the Vikings/Tigers football season, each year the teams alternate home-field advantage. The 2006 Cross-Town Showdown was held on October 20, 2006.