Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Location | Woodrow Wilson Blvd. at N. State St. Jackson, Mississippi |
| Broke ground | ~1941 |
| Opened | 1941 |
| Closed | Open |
| Demolished | N/A |
| Owner | State of Mississippi |
| Operator | State of Mississippi |
| Surface | Grass |
| Former names | |
| N/A | |
| Tenants | |
| Jackson State University Tigers (NCAA) (1967-Present) | |
| Capacity | |
| 60,492 | |
Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium is an outdoor football stadium in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. A state-owned facility, Veterans Memorial Stadium is the home field of the Jackson State University Tigers; it also plays host to the MHSAA state championship game every fall and other special events, including several NFL exhibition games.
The stadium hosted an NFL preseason game between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts on August 26, 2006, in which the Colts won 27-14.
After initially being built in 1941 with stands on both sides of the field, the northwest corner was bowled in 1980 to increase the seating capacity to its current size (about 62,000); until the recent expansion of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Veterans Stadium was the largest sports facility in Mississippi.
Historically, Veterans Memorial Stadium was the site of many important college football games in Mississippi history, as Ole Miss and Mississippi State University regularly played in the stadium (while maintaining home fields in Oxford and Starkville), most famously in the annual Egg Bowl contests between the two schools, as well as rivalry games against LSU, until the early 1990s. The University of Southern Mississippi made regular appearances as well, playing both UM and MSU as well as games against such schools as Texas A&M. The stadium continues to host the annual Capital City Classic between Jackson State and Alcorn State University, both of the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
[edit] Reference
| Current Football Venues in the Southwestern Athletic Conference |
|---|
| Ace W. Mumford Stadium (Southern) • Blackshear Stadium (Prairie View A&M) • Crampton Bowl (Alabama State) • Eddie Robinson Stadium (Grambling State) • Jack Spinks Stadium (Alcorn State) • Lion Stadium (Arkansas-Pine Bluff) • Louis Crews Stadium (Alabama A&M) • Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium (Jackson State) • Reliant Stadium (Texas Southern-secondary) • Rice-Totten Field (Mississippi Valley State) • Robertson Stadium (Texas Southern-primary) |
