With the construction of its towering new skyboxes complete, Michigan rededicated its iconic football stadium On September 4 in fine fashion. The rededication included a fancy Friday night reception, not one but two fly-overs the next day, and an inspirational banner touching by Brock Mealer, who was told he would have little chance of walking after his car accident two-and-a-half years ago. All to celebrate the $226 million renovation being finished on budget and on time for the season opener against Connecticut. All but two Big Ten schools have built similar skyboxes, but only Michigan faced any real resistance when it announced its plans in 2005. But even those who opposed the construction, such as the people at “Save the Big House,” did so out of respect and affection for the stadium, which, they wrote, provides “a thrilling, unmatched experience.”It’s hard to imagine today, when the Big House is considered a sacred structure, but on the eve of the Stadium’s first dedication game, 83 years ago, public opinion was not so unified.

The empire builder

Michigan Stadium today is the largest college-owned stadium in the country. With a capacity of 109,901, the building could play host to almost the entire population of Ann Arbor, and it’s attracted over 100,000 fans for every game since November 8, 1975. With numbers like those, no one questions why Michigan has such an incredible facility, even though it only makes money seven or eight days a year. But why did the University build such a monstrosity way back in 1927, when the population of the students and city combined barely topped 35,000? Two-words: Fielding Yost. Yost was Schembechler before Schembechler, and Canham before Canham. What they accomplished is undoubtedly impressive, but they were following Yost’s lead. As Michigan’s coach, Yost took a renegade sport and made it respectable, even admirable, during its crucial early years. As the athletic director, he helped transform the college game from a glorified intramural circuit into a well-run public spectacle, the country’s greatest attraction. Perhaps most importantly, he built a foundation for Michigan athletics with such foresight it remains intact today, inspiring countless universities to follow suit. “We’ve got the first field house ever built on a campus,” Canham told me. “We’ve got the first intramural building. We’ve got the largest stadium in the country. That was no accident. That was Fielding Yost.”

Overcoming objections

When Yost arrived in Ann Arbor in 1901, the Wolverines played their games where Schembechler Hall is located now, at the 15,500-seat Regents Field. A few years later alumnus Dexter Ferry donated the rest of the huge plot of land that’s bordered by State, Stadium, Hoover and the railroad tracks. The University renamed the whole area Ferry Field, and in 1906 moved the football stadium where the outdoor track is today. They built 21,000 seats around the field, then doubled the capacity in 1922. Nonetheless, it bothered Yost’s political instincts that Michigan still couldn’t provide enough tickets for state legislators and other power-brokers for the big games. And it bothered Yost’s pride that universities like Illinois and Ohio State already had gleaming new super stadiums that could hold over 70,000 fans. Yost knew he couldn’t pitch the idea of a new stadium to the University as a money maker. That became clear when an administrative higher-up told Yost the Regents’ would object to his stadium plans, because they felt that “amateur college contests should not be transformed into public spectacles”—a laughable notion today, but they meant it, rejecting the proposal the first two times Yost presented it. Instead of mounting a frontal attack, Yost couched the stadium proposal in a long list of improvements to benefit “Athletics-for-All,” a hot movement in the twenties. On his list of “immediate and pressing needs” to meet this new demand, Yost buried “Increased seating capacity for football stands” midway down his ten point list, though it was surely the item he cared about most.Yost then wrote loyal alumni to promote the idea of entertainment for the masses, not just the students. Predictably, it worked. Yost got backing from the students, alumni and press. He also dropped the names of his many friends in the state legislature. He liked to point out they decided how much to give the University, yet were often upset they couldn’t get tickets at Ferry Field, and wasn’t that a shame? Perhaps worn out by Yost’s non-stop efforts, the Regents finally approved the new stadium on their third vote.

The Big House

Yost originally wanted to build a 140,000 seat stadium, but settled for a capacity of 70,000 with 15,000 temporary bleachers and—crucially—room to expand. They installed 22 miles of California redwood for the seats, and planted a single four-leaf clover for good luck. “It was the biggest damn hole in the ground I ever saw!” said Kip Taylor, who scored the first touchdown in the Big House. “People said, ‘Oh, man, Yost is off his rocker!'”The immensity of the Big House got all the attention, but the genius was in the details. Though most fields ran east-west at the time, Yost designed Michigan Stadium to run north-south. This kept the sun out of the players’ eyes and the fall winds to a minimum. Today, all football fields do it Yost’s way. He also had the foresight to install footings for a second deck, and, incredibly, to make eight large conduits in the cement to handle the wiring necessary for electronic media. “Yost knew there was something electronic coming,” says Howard King, the Stadium’s former public address announcer. Today ABC and ESPN use the conduits—still sufficient, even now—that Fielding Yost planned in 1925. With Yost taking the lead, everyone involved in the project worked furiously. They broke ground on September 15, 1926, and hosted the inaugural game just over a year later, on October 1, 1927. Hurry up, indeed.

The first dedication

The late Bennie Oosterbaan, one of Michigan’s greatest athletes, loved to tell the story of Michigan’s first dedication game, in 1927. Michigan played Ohio State, a new rival, and sent the Buckeyes home with a 21-0 loss. In that informal era, after the game Yost walked back from the stadium to the campus with Oosterbaan, the star of the team. They were both in high spirits from the day’s events, but for different reasons. “Mr. Yost was feeling pretty good,” Oosterbaan told Alfred Slote of The Ann Arbor Observer. “We’d won, and the stadium was completely filled. He turned to me and said, ‘Bennie, do you know what the best thing about that new stadium is? Eighty-five thousand people paid five dollars apiece for their seats—and Bennie, they had to leave the seats there!'”Yost’s vision was vindicated.By 1929, Big Ten Commissioner Major John L. Griffith was moved to write Yost, “You have built the finest athletic plant in the world.” Few would argue with that statement then. Or now.