Tad Gormley Stadium

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tad Gormley Stadium is a multipurpose outdoor stadium located in City Park in New Orleans, Louisiana. It has been used for football, track & field, and soccer. It played host to the US Olympic Track & Field Trials for the 1992 Summer Olympics. Its most frequent use is for high school football, which attracts a large following in the South. In recent years, Tulane University has played its homecoming football game at Gormley so that fans could tailgate before and after the game--something which is not possible at their regular home stadium, the Louisiana Superdome. The experiment met with a good deal of success, generating sellout crowds when the Superdome would normally have been sparsely populated.

The stadium was built in 1937; its original name was City Park Stadium. In the early years of the stadium, fans often packed the stands or stood around the field to watch high school football games. The record for attendance was set in 1940 when 34,345 spectators attended a game between Jesuit and Holy Cross. However, the current maximum listed capacity is 26,500.

The stadium was home to the New Orleans Pelicans after the closing of old Pelican Stadium. It has often been used as a music venue, including the New Orleans appearance of The Beatles.

Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, flooded the stadium, which remained structurally sound. The stadium required major work to the electrical system and the field.

The stadium officially re-opened with the field renamed "Reggie Bush Field," under the namesake of the New Orleans Saint's first-round draft pick, who contributed to Tad Gormley's rebuilding process.

The first event held at the newly-renovated Tad Gormley Stadium was an LHSAA prep-football game on September 21, 2006 pitting the Brother Martin Crusaders against the Higgins High Hurricanes.