Texas Stadium
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Texas Stadium is the home field of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys. It is located at Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, and opened on October 24, 1971, at a cost of $35 million. The stadium seats 65,675.
Built to replace the aging Cotton Bowl, the stadium was to have originally been a domed stadium, but the stadium could not support the weight of the entire roof, and public funding ran out before the roof support structure could be modified. This resulted in most of the stands being enclosed but not the playing field itself. This unusual arrangement - more commonly seen in European soccer stadiums - prompted Cowboys linebacker D.D. Lewis to make his now-famous quip that the "hole" in the stadium's roof was there "so that God can watch His team."
The stadium hosts neutral site college football games, and formerly was home to the SMU Mustangs before the NCAA shut down its football program in 1987-88. (SMU has since built its own on-campus stadium.) In November and December, Texas Stadium is a major venue for high school football. It is not uncommon for there to be high school football tripleheaders at the stadium. Texas Stadium has served as a temporary home for two Dallas-area high schools - Plano Senior High School in 1979 after the home stadium was damaged by a prank gone awry, and Highland Park High School while a new stadium on campus was being constructed. The 2001 Big 12 football conference championship game was held at the site, as well as the 1973 Pro Bowl. In addition to football, the stadium has hosted concert events, wrestling spectaculars, and religious gatherings such as Promise Keepers and Billy Graham crusades (a Graham crusade was the first event held at Texas Stadium).
The playing surface installed in 1971 was officially labelled Texas Turf, and was a form of AstroTurf; it was replaced by a somewhat softer surface called RealGrass in 2002.
The Cowboys will be abandoning Texas Stadium in 2008 or 2009 for a new, as-yet-unnamed stadium that will be constructed at taxpayer expense in Arlington, Texas. In November of 2004, Arlington voters approved a half-cent (.005 per US Dollar) sales tax to fund the $650 million stadium by a margin of 55-45. Jerry Jones, the Cowboys' owner, spent over $5 million backing the ballot measure.
The fate of Texas Stadium after the Cowboys' departure remains uncertain. However, the famed roof, whose worn paint had become unsightly in the early 2000's, was repainted in the summer of 2006 by the City of Irving. It was the first time that the famed roof was repainted since Texas Stadium opened.
[edit] Picture Gallery
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