TCU | Amon G. Carter Stadium Redevelopment

Stadium History

When the Frog faithful began to overflow the stands at Clark Field, the TCU Board of Trustees realized that a new stadium was needed for the TCU football program. Thus, the Board of Trustees voted for a new stadium and created the Athletics Committee to study the cost as well as find a way to pay for it.

stadium complete Momentum for the new stadium hit an all-time high when the Frogs claimed their first Southwest Conference championship on November 30, 1929, when all-conference quarterback Howard Grubbs engineered a late fourth-quarter drive to tie crosstown rivals, 7-7. In Francis Schmidt's first season with the Frogs, TCU concluded the season with a 9-0-1 record, and stadium talks began to heat up.

The Athletics Committee recommended that the University begin a "quiet campaign" headed by Fort Worth Star-Telegram owner and publisher Amon G. Carter to raise $150,000 for the stadium that would seat roughly 30,000. The newspaper publisher recommended that Fort Worth residents raise 60 percent of the money for the stadium. Eventually, the sides settled on selling mortgage bonds to construct a $350,000 stadium that would seat 27,000, but could expand to over 60,000.

1st football game The TCU Board of Trustees endorsed the settlement, and in 1929, a football stadium began to take shape. Less than one year after beginning construction on the stadium, the Frogs played their first game against the University of Arkansas on October 11, 1930. With Amon G. Carter Stadium at capacity of 22,000, the Frogs defeated the Razorbacks soundly by a 40-0 count, which marked a crowning achievement and the perfect dedicatory battle.

Over the next two decades, several expansions of Amon G. Carter Stadium began to take shape from the end zone to the east grandstand areas. In 1948, construction to east grandstand increased capacity by 8,500 to a total of 30,500 while three years later, 2,500 seats were added to the north end zone to up the total to 33,000. In 1953, the stadium once again expanded to a total capacity of 37,000 following a 4,000-seat expansion to the east grandstands.

Amon G. Carter Stadium reached another milestone in 1956 as a two-level press box and upper deck area was added, which featured a giant 60' x 120' display of the school's logo - the curved Purple and White "TCU." The letters were displayed on the bleacher seats and could be seen when flying over Amon G. Carter Stadium towards the DFW International Airport. When construction was completed in 1956, the official capacity of Amon G. Carter Stadium was 46,083 - over double what it was when originally constructed.

The newest round of construction did not occur for three decades when the seats in the lower grandstands were removed and replaced by aluminum seats in 1985. The upper deck area followed suit in 1991 when all of its seats were replaced by aluminum seats, which actually decreased the attendance of Amon G. Carter Stadium to a total capacity of 44,008. In addition, the original artificial turf was replaced with natural grass prior to the beginning of the 1992 season.

Modern Era

overhead stadium Over the last 15 seasons, Amon G. Carter Stadium has undergone a major facelift as several new facilities and additions have aided the Frogs in becoming one of the premier programs in all of college football.

The facelift began in 1996 when the Walsh Physical Performance Complex was constructed at the cost of over $11-million, which included a home to the TCU Sports Medicine Center, football locker room expansion, weight room and equipment room. Dedicated to former TCU trustee - F. Howard Walsh, and his wife, Mary D. Fleming-Walsh - the complex features over 22,182-square-feet and is located just outside the south end zone of Amon G. Carter Stadium.

The weight room inside the Walsh Physical Performance Center received a $100,000 renovation in Summer 2006 and sits at over 9,000-square-feet, featuring nine double-sided power racks with platforms, three new sets of dumbbells and 1,000-square-feet of state-of-the-art weight room flooring.

In 2002, a new scoreboard and video board were installed in the north end zone of Amon G. Carter Stadium following a generous donation by the Dave E. Bloxom Sr. Foundation.

The John S. Justin Athletic Center was also completed in 2002 in the south end zone of Amon G. Carter Stadium. The $7.5-million facility houses offices for all Frog football coaches and staff along with the TCU Athletics Administration. The John S. Justin Athletic Center also contains a video lab, academic learning areas, team meeting rooms and the Encke Heritage Center, which plays home to a vast collection of trophies and other historical athletics memorabilia. Inside of the Encke Heritage Center are the Frogs' two football national championship trophies in addition to Davey O'Brien's 1938 Heisman Trophy and LaDainain Tomlinson's 2000 Doak Walker Award.

The field at Amon G. Carter Stadium was renamed after W.A. "Monty & Tex" Moncrief in 2003 following a $3-million donation to the football program in honor of the legendary oil family and one of the first families of Philanthropy in the State of Texas. Also in 2003, Amon G. Carter Stadium became the home of the annual Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl Game.

The most recent expansion to Amon G. Carter Stadium came in August 2008 when the 40,000-square-foot Dutch Meyer Athletic Complex and Abe Martin Academic Enhancement Center was constructed. At the cost of $13-million, the newest addition was fully-funded by nine donors and features six luxury suites, 250 club seats, academic and team meeting space as well as a player lounge area. Frog faithful also receive a unique view of Amon G. Carter Stadium as the suites are the closest suites to the field in any stadium in the country. With the most recent expansion, the total capacity of Amon G. Carter Stadium was increased to 44,358.

Amon G. Carter Stadium provided the perfect setting for the biggest game in program history when the Frogs welcomed the University of Utah on November 14, 2009. Highlighted by the first appearance by ESPN's College GameDay on the TCU campus, the fourth-ranked Frogs defeated the 14th-ranked Runnin' Utes by a 55-28 score in front of a crowd of 50,307 - which set a stadium record.