Lane Stadium has been used by Virginia Tech since 1965; it replaced Miles Stadium.

Overall, NC State has a record of 2-4-1 at this field, tying in their one ranked matchup and losing twice when Virginia Tech was ranked. Additionally, NC State has gone 1-3 since becoming conference mates.

  * Non-conference games

Virginia Tech had been using the dated Miles Stadium since 1926; by 1963, the 17,000-seat venue was beginning to shows its age. Its replacement had been waiting in the wings for several years before it opened: concurrent with the construction of a new basketball venue (Cassell Coliseum), grading work and early sketches were done as early as January 1962 [1]. The hold-up seems to have been financial: VT only built only one of the twin decks at a time, building the west deck alone in what some papers termed a "pay as you go basis," using donations to cover the cost [4].

The stadium started with an opening date of 1964, but it slid a year as days passed without significant progress. The need was obvious: the Hokies hosted only one home game in 1963 and two the previous six seasons. Further, UVA's Scott Stadium, which was renovated in 1964, sat about 7,000 more spectators [1]. Some also claimed the poor state of Virginia Tech's athletic facilities also kept them out of the ACC -- indeed, a 1954 report by the VPI Advisory Committee prophetically noted that Tech "will very likely be unable to remain as a member of an intercollegiate conference with other institutions of similar size" with their existing facilities. The hope was that improved facilities would get them an invite the second time around [6]. Ground officially broke in April 1964, though the field and drainage systems were already complete.

Around the same time, it was also announced the stadium would be named for Edward Hudson Lane, a member of the VPI class of 1910 who manned several boards and committees for his alma matter. "There's probably a lot of other alumni who deserve the honor more than I do," said Lane when asked of the honor of the stadium bearing his name. "You undestand, of course, that I think it is a very fine compliment. [But] I demurred at first when Dr. Hahn informed me the board had decided... to name the stadium in my honor." While a specific number was not named, Lane's contributions to the stadium were "substantial" [2].

The stadium's west stands were expected to be complete by Fall 1965, along with the associated press box and base facilities. With each stand seating 17,400, the new stadium's first season would not have actually enlarged Virginia Tech's capacity all that much had there not been about 7,500 temporary wooden bleachers placed along the east sideline [3]. Even still, construction was so far behind that the Hokies held their April spring game in Roanoke's Victory Stadium [5]. The west bleacher was not complete by the time the Gobblers' scrub team held the stadium's first game -- an 8-8 tie against Maryland -- on Friday, September 24th.

The new stadium initially featured grass transplanted from Miles Field, as well as the old scoreboard; the grass was eventually replaced with Meriod bluegrass grown 2 years in advance, but was otherwise sparkly new from the start, featuring a 3-story pressbox, complete with air conditioning, bathrooms, elevators, and food service to boot. A tunnel connecting Cassell Coliseum to Lane Stadium allowed the Virginians and their visitors to dress and shower in the stadium at first, rather than building a fieldhouse as most stadiums of the time did [7]. The old scoreboard was replaced in 1968 at a cost of $45,000 (just under $4 million in 2023); the new board featured an 44-character digital message board along the bottom, and was topped with a nine-foot Gobbler at the top which would light up and cry on a VT score [14]. Both boards were in the south endzone

The Hokies' varsity were able to delay their home opener with some clever schedule gymnastics: they opened the season September 18th in Richmond against Wake Forest (part of VT's Harvest Bowl series) and played their next game at Richmond. That pushed their (varsity) home opener back a week, to October 2nd; the undefeated Gobblers hosted former SoCon rival William & Mary, as well as the surviving members of VT's 1926 football team, which had dedicated the now-demolished Miles Stadium. Virginia Tech won 9-7 in a come-from-behind victory engineered on the legs and arm of quarterback Bobby Owens [8]. Though the Techmen lost two weeks later, they remained undefeated (with one tie) at home until 1967, after 9 consecutive victories.

Even with the delays, the stands, which was made of concrete with white Alaskan cedar bleacher seats, was not quite ready. The student body (about 7,500 strong) was relegated to wooden bleachers on the east side, while paying customers sat in the western side, which featured "only a few thousand" wooden bench seats -- otherwise, spectators sat directly on the concrete. Hard numbers have been difficult to come by, but it was believed that the entire western bleachers would be complete in time for their next home game on October 23rd, which functioned as both homecoming and the stadium's formal dedication [9].

Even the existing 25,000 seats weren't enough to sate the ferocious appetite for the matchup: 28,300 tickets were sold, forcing the construction of another 2,000 temporary seats in the north endzone. It was believed to be the first "complete sellout" in Virginia Tech history, yet as time marched on, some "finishing touches" were still needed yet. Some work was necessarily delayed after a truck carrying about a dozen of the pre-stressed concrete seats ran off the road [10]. The Hokies won comfortably, 22-14, with post-game reports estimating an additional 1,800 spectators.

The following summer, 6,000 permanent seats were added to the east side of the stadium -- the lower half of the eventual full stands, with the goal of adding the remaining 10,500 permanent seats in a couple more years. With temporary bleachers relocated to behind the new east stands, Lane Stadium's capacity in 1966 was about 31,000. The total cost to date of the stadium was just $1.4 million (about $13.3 million in 2023) [11]. Another 5,000 permanent seats were added in 1967, bringing the total seated capacity to 28,500. Work was finally completed on the stadium just before kickoff of the 1968 football season, with the 35,000 seat stadium augmentable with 7,000 temporary endzone bleacher seats [12]. The total cost was $3.5 million (almost $31 million in 2023).

In 1976, it was announced that 12,500 seats were to be added to the east stands, yielding 47,500 permanent seats, with endzone bleacher seats pushing the capacity to over 52,500. It was originally hoped to start construction in the spring of 1977 and be completed ahead of the 1978 season, but was ultimately delayed until the spring of 1980. 10,000 seats were ready by the start of the 1980 football season, and work was finished in early 1981. It was completed with a roughly $3.3 million (over $12 million in 2023) price tag -- the work actually cost more, but a delinquent contractor picked up the costs for over a years delay [13].

In 1992, the field's playing surface was dedicated in honor of the Worsham Family; the stadium retains the Lane name. In 1994 and 1998, ancillary renovations regarding the stadium structure and facade were completed, with the former improving the facility's ADA accessibility, decreasing the venue's capacity to 50,000. Otherwise, the bones of the stadium remained unchanged from 1982-1999 [15]. The only other change was the installation of a new scoreboard in 1991, replacing the old one installed back in 1968. The new board, located in the south endzone just as its predecessors were, featured a four-color message center and a clock accurate to the tenth of a second, and was installed during a six-week road stint between August 31st and October 19th [16].

In 1999, that all changed: work started on a massive new stadium expansion project. Though work started just ahead of Y2K (2,100 seats were added to the north endzone in that season), the bulk of the work wasn't ready until a few years later. By 2000, more work in the north pushed the capacity to 56,272; behind these new stands was also a new video scoreboard, the stadium's first ever video board. Legendary Hokie coach Frank Beamer feared the new technology may distract his players, saying "The last thing you need is to be trying to get your punt team on the field and some guys are late getting off the sideline beacuse they're watching a replay or something on the videoboard." (This videoboard itself was replaced in 2005 with the "HokieVision" board, which was itself replaced in 2013) [17]. The following season, the north stands were modified again when 600 seats were removed to make room for the Marching Virginians [15].

In 2002, the south endzone was enclosed for the first time by the construction of 11,120 bleacher seats, pushing capacity to 65,115. The structure was modeled after the Cleveland Browns' "Dawg Pound," which athletic director Jim Weaver toured for inspiration in 1999. Starting in 2004 and finished before the 2006 football season, Lane Stadium's old press box was demolished and subsequently replaced by a new press area, luxury suites, and private seating areas on the west side of the stadium, bumping the venue's maximum size to 66,233 seats [15].

Pictures of Lane Stadium