[Ads-l] Antedating of "Bowl" (Football Stadium)

[Peter Reitan]

In researching my post about which game should be considered the first "Rose Bowl," I ran across a later (November 1912) reference to the stadium as a "bowl," which may be closer to current usage than "Bowl type" of stadium.

"The stadium will be of the sunken type, twenty-five feet of the bowl being below the level of the ground, the above ground portion being thirty-two feet high."

The Tribune (Scranton, Pennsylvania), November 15, 1912, page 14.

But neither this, nor Fred Shapiro's May 1912 citation are the earliest example of "bowl," with respect to a stadium.  A May 1908 article in a San Francisco newspaper referred to the stadium located in Golden Gate Park as a "bowl-shaped stadium."

"On the day of the festival the great bowl-shaped Stadium at the park will be a beautiful sight."

San Francisco Chronicle, May 3, 1908, page 67.

https://www.newspapers.com/article/san-francisco-chronicle/29516151/


The occasion was the arrival of the Great White Fleet, before it crossed the Pacific.

There were references to a "Golden Gate Stadium" as early as 1906, but it was apparently not completed yet in May 1908.  A July 1908 article shows an artist's rendering of what it is expected to look like when completed.  That article refers to the stadium as a "vast oval bowl-shaped seating arrangement."  It looks more or less like the Roman coliseum.
https://www.newspapers.com/article/san-francisco-chronicle/136935501/

I'm not sure whether it was ever completed as imagined.

As for the first "Rose Bowl," it depends on how you define "Rose Bowl."  Some use the name retroactively to cover the 1902 Michigan-Stanford game at the Tournament of Roses.  Some might limit the name to the first of a continuous series of end-of-the-season invitational games played during the Tournament of Roses, the first one played in 1916, but not in the stadium called the Rose Bowl.  The Rose Bowl stadium went by that name when completed in 1922, and the first ToR game was played there in 1923, although the game itself was not called that as such, until a few years later.  But I ran across an 1890 football game played during the first Tournament of Roses, between a local club and a local high school, which one might consider the first "Rose Bowl" game, if following the retroactive usage some apply to the Michigan Stanford game of 1890.

https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-history-of-first-rose-bowl-1890-1902.html

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2023 7:13 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Antedating of "Bowl" (Football Stadium)

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Subject:      Antedating of "Bowl" (Football Stadium)
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