Williams-Brice Stadium, Football stadium in Columbia, United States.
Williams-Brice Stadium is a 80,250-seat football stadium at the corner of George Rogers Boulevard and Bluff Road in Columbia, South Carolina. The field is ringed by tiered concrete seating, with a taller upper deck above the south end zone and a dark rectangular video board above one side. The east grandstand is the only remaining portion of the original 1934 structure.
The stadium was originally built in 1934 as Columbia Municipal Stadium through a Works Progress Administration project during the Great Depression. It received its current name in 1972 following a major gift from Martha Williams-Brice.
Fans call the stadium "The Cockpit," a nickname used since at least the early 1970s, when a fundraising campaign for an AstroTurf surface was called "Carpet the Cockpit." The venue also hosted the annual Palmetto Capital City Classic between Benedict College and South Carolina State until 2005, and Pope John Paul II spoke here in 1987 to 60,000 people.
The stadium sits at the corner of George Rogers Boulevard and Bluff Road, next to the South Carolina State Fairgrounds. Since 2015 the former surface parking lot has been replaced by Springs Brooks Plaza, a landscaped promenade, and a 52-acre tailgating area with over 650 trees lies off Bluff Road, reached by the 100-foot-wide Garnet Way. The east grandstand is the only remaining part of the 1934 structure.
The stadium is nicknamed "The Cockpit", a name in use since at least the early 1970s, when a fundraising drive for an AstroTurf surface was called "Carpet the Cockpit". The 2012 season brought a 36-by-124-foot Daktronics video board and the Garnet Way, a 100-foot-wide path through a 52-acre tailgating area planted with over 650 trees.
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