Notre Dame Stadium — the ground the nation watches

1930 – present · Rockne's stadium and its national moments

The place: The stadium Osborn Engineering — the designers of Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds and Comiskey Park — patterned at smaller scale on Michigan Stadium, and that Knute Rockne principally designed, opened on 4 October 1930 with a 20–14 win over Southern Methodist before 14,751 people; it was dedicated a week later, 26–2 over Navy before 40,593. Rockne coached one season inside it. Its capacity line is the football history's apparatus: 54,000 seats at the opening, 59,075 from the mid-1960s to 1996, 80,795 at the print peak of 2001–2016, and 77,622 since 2017, when the 400-million-dollar Campus Crossroads project wrapped the bowl in three buildings. Home games have sold out regularly since 1964. The stadium's 500th game was played on 18 November 2023 against Wake Forest, with cumulative attendance entering it at 30,259,839 — thirty million people through one set of gates in one Indiana county, which is the fame stated as arithmetic.

The national moments at the place, at fame size: Two football afternoons belong to this section because the nation remembers the ground by them; the football history owns both games whole. On 22 October 1977, against fifth-ranked Southern California, the team warmed up in its blue jerseys and took the field in green — the green-jersey game, still produced in highlight packages nearly fifty years on. On 15 October 1988, fourth-ranked Notre Dame beat first-ranked Miami 31–30 before 59,075, ending the Hurricanes' 36-game regular-season winning streak; the game the country calls "Catholics vs. Convicts" is the single most replayed afternoon in the stadium's life. The stadium's largest non-football congregation came on Sunday, 2 August 1987, when the International Summer Special Olympics Games opened there before a capacity crowd: athletes from 72 countries — the Games' own newspaper counted more than 4,700 athletes in advance — ABC televising the ceremonies nationally, Whitney Houston performing, John Williams conducting, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver charging the athletes in words the organization still keeps: "Tonight, in this great stadium, a new legend is born… Here, where crowds once cheered for Johnny Lujack and George Gipp…" The Games ran that week on the Notre Dame and Saint Mary's campuses, carried by more than sixteen thousand local volunteers.

Cross-reference: The stadium's build, its seasons and its capacity apparatus are the Notre Dame football history's (Football, ndf-stadium-1930 and ndf-apparatus-stadium); the 1987 Games are also the Events history's to tell. This entry carries the fame: the thirty million, the two afternoons, and the one August Sunday when the ground belonged to a different world's athletes.

Sources

1. The Notre Dame football history in this record — the build and openings of 1930; the capacity line 54,000 / 59,075 / 80,795 / 77,622; the sellout line from 1964; the 500th game, 18 November 2023, and the cumulative attendance; the green jerseys of 22 October 1977; the Miami game of 15 October 1988, 31–30 before 59,075.
2. The Observer, International Summer Special Olympics Games issues, University of Notre Dame Archives, July–August 1987 — the opening ceremonies at Notre Dame Stadium on Sunday 2 August 1987 before a capacity crowd; athletes from 72 countries; more than 4,700 athletes in the Games paper's advance count; ABC's national telecast; the performances; the 16,000 local volunteers.
3. Special Olympics (specialolympics.org) — Eunice Kennedy Shriver's charge to the athletes, dated South Bend, Indiana, USA, August 2, 1987.