Lafayette Football Stadium Renovation

[leopard88]

The world's most lopsided stadium is getting major (and way overdue) renovations for its 80th anniversary (Field Turf, lights, new seats, new pressbox, varsity house). Now the two-time defending Patriot League champions will have a home worthy of the team.

Lafayette Announces Major Renovations to Fisher Field

I may be the only person on the board that cares, but I felt like sharing anyway.

[Korkie]

I always catch the Lafayette-Lehigh game on tv. I never noticed the lopsidedness of the stadium before though. Looks like a high school stadium which only has a tiny set of bleachers for the road team.

[leopard88]

That's about right. I think the camera angles don't show how lopsided it is because you don't get that many shots of the south/home stands.

I stumbled on an OLD book in the Lafayette library once which showed plans for a 40-60,000 seat stadium on the site, with the seating bowl going all the way around at about the level of the south/home stands. Obviously that never happened.

The north/road stands were a little bigger before the fieldhouse was built in the early 1970s, but even at their biggest they only held about 2000-3000. In case you didn't read the linked article, the renovation is actually going to include tearing down the road stands and rebuilding them closer to the other side, with the field moving closer as well. Apparently, however, they are going to build new stands that are about the same size as the existing ones.

[sacker12]

Man, I was hoping this thread was about La.-Lafayette renovating their stadium. But, the plans for this stadium do look real nice. Also, you're right. That stadium is really lopsided.

[Steel Certain]

Cool post...thanks for sharing it! Good news considering they almost canned your whole football program several years back. I went to Lehigh ('96) and have been to many Lehigh-Lafayette games. I actually never noticed that it was lopsided...after that much pre-game tailgating, it always looked normal to me!

Go Mountain Hawks!

[leopard88]

Cool post...thanks for sharing it!  Good news considering they almost canned your whole football program several years back.  I went to Lehigh ('96) and have been to many Lehigh-Lafayette games.  I actually never noticed that it was lopsided...after that much pre-game tailgating, it always looked normal to me!

Go Mountain Hawks!

You were only looking at the large side, so why would you notice. I'm used to looking at the other side and the fieldhouse and the trees and houses in the background (cool view in the fall, actually) -- and have attended games and/or walked past on the way to basketball games while sober.

I have heard that there was some consideration toward building a new stadium at the athletic complex about 3 miles north of campus. I'm really glad they didn't do that, because I think the best part about Fisher Field is that it is tucked into the campus, so you can walk to games instead of driving or taking a shuttle bus. As nice as Goodman Stadium appears (I've never actually been there, because I was technically banned from the Lehigh campus after imbibing a little too much before/during the last game at Taylor Stadium in 1987 -- though I have been to a few basketball games since then), the big drawback is that it is in the middle of nowhere. That seems to take away from the atmosphere a little bit, from what I have been told.

Go Leopards! Beat the Brown-and-White-Mountain-Packing-Engineer-Hawks!

P.S. I believe it should be referred to LAFAYETTE-LEHIGH as long as we continue to have a commanding lead in the series.