Drake Field was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...

, and track stadium on the campus of Auburn University, in

Auburn, Alabama Auburn is a city in Lee County, Alabama, United States. It is the largest city in eastern Alabama, with a 2020 population of 76,143. It is a principal city of the Auburn-Opelika Metropolitan Area. The Auburn-Opelika, AL MSA with a population o ...

, United States. From 1911 to 1939, Drake field was the home field of the Auburn University Tigers

football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an all-s ...

. The stadium was also home to the Auburn University Tigers baseball team from 1911 through 1949, and the Auburn High School Tigers football team from 1911 through 1920 and 1935 through 1939. It had a capacity of 7,550 in 1939.

History

Drake Field was named for John Hodges Drake III, who served as the college physician from 1873 until 1926 and who donated the land for the field. The field was inaugurated on October 7, 1911 with the college football team's 29-0 win over Mercer. Two months later on the field, Auburn High School played the program's first football game, against

Sidney Lanier High School Sidney Lanier High School is a public high school in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. History Established in 1910 on the southern outskirts of downtown Montgomery, Alabama, the school was named for a Southern poet, Sidney Lanier, who lived i ...

, on November 25, 1911. Auburn High School continued to play football at the stadium until moving to their on-campus stadium Ross Field in 1921; they returned to Drake Field in 1935 after outgrowing that facility.''Opelika Daily News'', September 21, 1921''Opelika Daily News'', November 2, 1935. Both the high school and the college football teams moved to adjacent Auburn Stadium, today

Jordan–Hare Stadium Jordan–Hare Stadium (properly pronounced n central Alabama dialectas ) is an American football stadium in Auburn, Alabama on the campus Auburn University. It primarily serves as the home venue of the Auburn Tigers football team. The stadi ...

, in 1939. The college baseball team continued playing at Drake Field until 1949, when they moved to Plainsman Park. The field remained until the construction of the Haley Center in the late 1960s. Drake Field today sits on the site of the Auburn University student union.

References

{{Auburn Tigers baseball navbox Auburn High School (Alabama) Auburn Tigers football venues Defunct college football venues High school baseball venues in the United States High school football venues in the United States Buildings and structures in Auburn, Alabama Defunct sports venues in Alabama Auburn Tigers baseball College baseball venues in the United States Auburn Tigers sports venues Baseball venues in Alabama 1911 establishments in Alabama Sports venues completed in 1911 1960s disestablishments in Alabama