In the early winter months of 1976, Frank Maloney took his future star offensive lineman through the Syracuse campus on a recruiting trip. Maloney and the Syracuse coaching staff drove him around campus, pointing out buildings along the way. Over there was Bird Library, completed in 1972. And then they passed Newhouse II, completed in 1973.

And when the tour was complete, Craig Wolfley still had one question:

‘Where’s the stadium?’

Because in 1976, the structure that has come to symbolize Syracuse and the university had not yet been built. There was only the archaic, rusty, 26,000-seat football arena called Archbold Stadium, which was of no use to then-SU head coach Maloney and the rest of his staff.

Maloney would drive his recruits past the stadium at 50 mph. He took Wolfley around at night so he wouldn’t catch a glimpse.

‘There was no way you were going to continue playing in Division I without a new stadium,’ Maloney said. ‘Archbold Stadium was falling apart. It only held 20,000-something people. People did not want to come in to play there. It was very difficult to recruit. When we brought recruits to campus, we never took them to the stadium.’

It wasn’t until 1980 that Maloney had a stadium he could boast of to recruits: the Carrier Dome. Today, 30 years later, the structure has become one of the defining symbols of the university and the city. This weekend, the university will celebrate the Dome’s 30th anniversary as Syracuse takes on Maine in its home opener.

To many current and former players in SU’s athletic department, the Dome is responsible for the resurrection of the football program in the late 1980s and early 90s, as well as the dominance of the basketball program ever since.

Says former SU head coach Dick MacPherson of the athletic department’s successes in the past three decades: ‘It all comes back to the Carrier Dome.’

A decision

To Bill Hurley, road games were the only part of the season that was worth the grind.

The former SU quarterback saw West Virginia’s new stadium. Ohio State and Penn State’s upgrades. Everywhere he went, it was a better place to play a football game.

‘I’m sure Archbold Stadium, in its day, was a good place to play — probably right up into the ‘60s,’ Hurley said. ‘(After that) it was antiquated. It was falling apart. It wasn’t a great environment to be playing in. … There was nothing cool about playing there.’

Before the Carrier Dome, Syracuse football was at the brink of a downgrade. The program had endured a boycott by nine black players, who had accused head coach Ben Schwartzwalder of discriminatory practices, in 1970. Coincidentally, that season was the only one of the next five in which SU had a winning record. After a tumultuous 2-9 season in 1973, Schwartzwalder, the winningest coach in SU history, retired.

Talk of stepping down to lower college ranks — to play the Colgates, the Akrons and the Maines regularly — was very much in the air.

‘There was a lot of talk about de-emphasizing football,’ Maloney said. ‘There was a wishy-washiness. ‘Maybe we ought to go down and play the Colgates and be like that all the time in that level.”

And so, a commitment had to be made — one way or another — by the school’s administration and athletic department. Their options were downgrading the program or committing to its future with a multimillion dollar investment. It was a decision that would wholly affect the future of the program.

‘Can you imagine those tough times?’ MacPherson said, bewildered by the idea of the decision. ‘Those people making the tough gut call to put a football arena on campus?’

A commitment

There was a time when the building of the Carrier Dome, as it is known and beloved, wasn’t supposed to happen.

Before Jake Crouthamel started as Syracuse’s athletic director in 1978, he was promised an open-air, 35,000-seat football stadium at Skytop. But traffic concerns in the East End neighborhood stalled those plans. As Crouthamel started his tenure at SU, the idea of a new stadium evolved into a dome. On campus.

‘It was a very unique situation,’ Crouthamel said. ‘Not that we changed plans, but we changed plans to build a stadium right in the middle of campus and then put a dome on it.’

To some, the idea was crazy. To others, it was perfect. There was no happy medium. Eventually, the idea won out. Chancellor Melvin Eggers and Vice Chancellor Cliff Winters were on board, and the board of trustees approved. And so, over those next two years, the Dome was conceived as an idea, planned and, finally, constructed. And it was a building that would provide both the football and basketball programs with a resource and a tool.

‘This was a commitment,’ Maloney said. ‘This was a commitment to the future. Syracuse was going to play with the big boys.’

Added Louis Orr, a former Syracuse basketball forward: ‘You deal with some of the unknowns. At the end of the day, people have to have visions. And that was someone’s vision. Whoever’s vision it was for the Dome, thank God for them. … Any time someone has a vision for something, there’s always going to be people that doubt. There was doubt then. But you have to believe. And whoever’s vision that was, they were right. Quite a vision.’

A home

They played that entire 1979 season on the road. Two ‘home’ games in the Meadowlands. Two in Buffalo. One at Cornell.

As the Syracuse football team opened up the 1980 season, finally, it had a home. A brand new home.

Gone were the guard dogs that, for whatever reason, had patrolled the locker rooms at Archbold. Gone were the trash cans stocked with coal to warm players’ feet. Gone was the apprehension of playing at home.

‘We were excited about it, not only as having a decent place and a home place to play football,’ Maloney said. ‘To me, it was a commitment by the university that they were in this for the long haul.’

The Orangemen opened a dome on Sept. 20, 1980, with 50,564 fans in the seats — nearly twice the capacity of Archbold. It was a dome that quickly became ‘the Dome.’

It was an electric atmosphere, the result of the culmination of years of conception, planning and paperwork. Syracuse beat Miami of Ohio 36-24 that day, the start of the foundation of the remainder of the 1980s and early 90s. A decade of success under MacPherson, highlighted by an undefeated 1987 season.

There are little things that are remembered about that first game. Maloney remembers the onside kick he called to start the game (bad decision). Leo Rautins, a former Syracuse basketball guard in the stands as a student, remembers the unbearable heat and the people passing out in the stands around him.

And Crouthamel remembers the feeling of gratification.

‘It was a great experience for everybody,’ he said. ‘I think everybody who was there for that opening event remembers it very fondly.

‘I was very proud.’

A new home

Cliff Winters slammed his fists on the table in anger. End of discussion. Jim Boeheim and the Syracuse basketball team were moving to the Carrier Dome that same year in 1980, despite Boeheim’s staunch objections.

To Boeheim and assistant coach Bernie Fine, Manley Field House was the quintessential basketball arena to serve as a home stadium. Ten thousand fans, packed on top of the court, screaming their lungs out. It was the main reason for the program’s 57-game home win streak.

‘We were saying, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,’ Fine said. ‘It was an intimidating place to play. The crowds would pack in there. It was a great place. And then all of a sudden, you move into a huge dome, and you have no idea what it’s going to be. If you have 10,000 in Manley, it’s packed. If you have 10,000 in the Dome, it looks empty.’

But Winters and the university’s administration said with just an average of 12,000 fans, it could add a sizeable $500,000 to the athletic department’s revenue.

End of discussion. Eventually, practically pried out of Manley, Boeheim begrudgingly accepted the move. And eventually, the Dome would become the defining symbol for Syracuse basketball as well.

Midway through the team’s second season in the Dome, Leo Rautins said, fans started to pack the Carrier Dome more and more. With the Dome and the advent of the Big East conference coinciding, Syracuse basketball quickly became nationally known.

‘The crowds weren’t great when it started,’ Rautins said. ‘Then, we were setting record crowds. Then, it became, let’s set another record crowd. Then, it became the place to be and the thing to do in Syracuse. Keep setting record crowds.’

Boeheim eventually came around. And the crowds and recruits kept coming. To anyone associated with the program’s past, the Dome is the main reason Syracuse basketball is a present powerhouse.

‘It has taken it to new heights,’ Louis Orr said. ‘It changed the national identity. There are people who have come to play basketball at Syracuse whose main attraction was the Carrier Dome, and to play in the Carrier Dome.’

‘The Dome’

In 1985, Fine took his future star guard/forward through the Syracuse campus on a recruiting trip. He showed off the Dome as his main recruiting tool.

And when the tour was complete, Stevie Thompson had one question the next day:

‘Can we go back to the Dome?’

Fine took Thompson back that morning on the way to the airport. Coincidentally, it was the day individual game tickets went on sale. There were 8,000 to 9,000 people in the Dome to get tickets, Fine said.

And Thompson was sold.

‘I didn’t even know they were (selling tickets) that day,’ Fine said. ‘But it worked out great, to say the least. It probably was the main reason he came here.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on September 14, 2010 at 12:00 pm