Memorial Stadium has been used by Clemson since it opened in 1942; it replaced Riggs Field.

Overall, NC State had a record of 11-25 at this field, going 2-10 when Clemson is ranked, 2-7 when they are ranked, and 0-3 when both teams are ranked. Even though both have been members of the same conference since NC State has traveled to Memorial Stadium, the Tigers hold a 1-0 advantage over NC State in non-conference games due to ACC sanctions against Clemson in the 1983-1984 seasons.

  * Non-conference games

The Tigers had been calling Riggs Field home since 1915, however, over two decades later, the venue was starting to show its age. "Riggs Field was just a few grandstand seats and a few bleacher seats," remembered Frank Howard, who oversaw the transition to a new stadium. He went on, exaggerating: "We didn't have many games at Clemson. We played Furman at Greenville most of the time, and if we had one home game a year that was a lot. Some seasons we didn't have any. It was just not a good place to play" [1].

Similar comments rang true at the time of its construction: Harris Hollis, co-editor of The Tiger (Clemson's student newspaper) noted the "limited seating facilities" of Riggs Field, in addition to the traffic issues the venue presented, even at its diminutive size. (Not every stadium problem can be remedied, I suppose, as anyone who has attended a Clemson home game will attest). College president Dr. R. F. Poole also noted the difficulty in bringing top-notch games to Clemson presented by such an outdated venue. He called the new stadium "essential to the future of Clemson" [3].

Not everyone was on board with the new stadium. Jess Neely, who coached the Tigers from 1932-1939, was reported to have said "Don't ever let them talk you into building a big stadium. Put about 10,000 seats behind the YMCA. That's all you'll ever need" [4]. But while Clemson staid pat, their opponents were moving ahead: since Neely's elevation to head coach, in-state rivals South Carolina (1934) and Furman (1936) had opened new, 20,000-plus person stadiums (Melton Field and Sirrine Stadium, respectively), while Riggs was confined to 13,000 at most.

The movement for a new stadium began in earnest shortly after Howard assumed leadership of the team. Preliminary construction plans were received in October, and construction began just over a year later, with almost all of the $115,000 (just over $2.4 million in 2023) project paid for in bonds. The location selected was a natural valley just below Cemetery Hill, which helped garner the "Death Valley" monicker. Clemson Civil Engineering students surveyed the land, and Clemson engineers sketched plans for the stands -- Carl Lee (class of 1908) and Professor H. E. Glenn are officially credited with the construction efforts [1] [3] [5].

The stadium's construction was famously a community effort, with Howard and several other football players taking on several of the more menial aspects of the work. "We had a few boys in summer school," remembers Howard. "I bought 15-20 axes and we cut all the trees down." Howard and his players also helped level the field, spread sand, lay the sod, and put on a few other finishing touches. "Before they sank the corner posts for the stands," Howard relayed, "I put a plug of chewing tobacco at the bottom of each hole for good luck." The final effort cost just $10,000 more than originally budgeted [1].

Fike Fieldhouse, which overlooked the stadium, was completed in April 1941 [6]. Its location helped Clemson's highly-vaunted hill run materialize, though this was not intentional. "We had to dress in Fike Fieldhouse, and that was the shortest way to the field," said Howard. "It is as simple as that. We didn't have any alternative" [1]. And while the fieldhouse was finished in 1941, construction of the stadium itself lagged into the following summer -- in fact, it was only finished in the nick of time. "We hung the gates at 1:00 p.m.," recalled Howard, "and played at 2:00 p.m. We barely finished the stadium in time to have the game" [9].

The original stadium consisted of two steel and concrete bleachers dug into the valley with a total capacity of 20,500, which could be augmented into a horseshoe if so desired [7]. However, the stadium rarely reached those numbers early in its life -- World War II gas rationing, coupled with lack-luster on-field results and a tradition of playing their major games on the road, helped keep attendance largely below that number.

Two somewhat major changes took place in 1948. The first was that the stadium started widely being called Death Valley. While the name is related to the aforementioned cemetery (which would be relocated in over a decade), its popularity really took off after Presbyterian coach Lonnie McMillan referenced the area's hot, still air, concurrent with his own team's newfound lack of success -- the Blue Hose were outscored 244-to-nothing from 1944 to 1948 [1]. The other change was the installation of lights, which were placed behind the stands [8].

A decade later, Clemson's success on the gridiron led to the expansion of the stadium. Bids were solicited in January for the project, which primarily consisted of adding upper decks on both the original north and south stands, as well as additional concessions areas, bathrooms, and replacing the original press box on the south stands, at a cost of $310,000 (just under $3.3 million in 2023) [10]. The work brought the venue's permanent capacity to 35,000, but portable seats, added in the form of two "half sections" in the west endzone, brought the size to 40,000 [11] [1].

Just two years later, Clemson officials began mulling a perplexing issue: whether to enlarge the stadium, or flood it. Looming over Death Valley since at least 1951 was the specter of Hartwell Dam and Powerplant, which threatened to flood Memorial Stadium -- the valley which aided Memorial Stadium's construction was now threatening to be its undoing. By 1955, it was decided the stadium could be kept by the construction of a series of dikes and a pumping station, though the exact specifics were evidently still a matter of debate until after the summer of 1957 [12]. Before the 1960 football season, the Tigers added west stands to the stadium, bringing the venue to 43,309 seats [13].

It's not clear what changes took place, but Clemson started reporting the capacity as 43,451 persons in 1963 [14]. The field saw relatively few changes for a little over a decade, with the stadium's wooden bleachers being replaced with aluminum ones in 1972, and the move from "H-style" goalposts to the pro-style slingshot goalposts the following season. The next year, the field's playing surface was renamed in honor of visionary coach Frank Howard [1].

The stadium began adding upper decks after the completion of the 1977 football season, starting with the south side deck, but ran into difficulty in January 1978, when it was discovered that the support structures were sinking. Concrete retaining walls were made to shore up the footing, and construction continued through the following season, when the stadium reopened with a capacity of 53,306 -- nearly 9,000 additional seats, plus 26 luxury suites, making Clemson possibly the first college football stadium in the country to have luxury suites [1].

In the summer of 1982, 3,800 permanent seats were added to the east hill. Construction began on the north side deck a week prior to their November 20th game against South Carolina -- their first home game of the season -- that same fall. This added over 15,000 seats, bringing the venue to 73,915 seats and a total capacity of 79,854. (Wikipedia and several period newspapers report gradual capacity increases from 1983-1987; I have found no evidence of construction other than a "recruit room," which I don't feel would change the venue's capacity. Further, at least one 1990 Clemson football media guide reports that the 1983 renovation brought the stadium to the latter capacity [15].) That same off-season, lights were installed in Memorial Stadium; though lights were installed in the late 1940s, they had gone unused since 1956 and were taken down some time in the 1960s [1] [14]. Again, Wikipedia reports a 279-person decreason in capacity from the 1987-1988 seasons, but it's not clear what actually changed at the stadium [4].

In 1991, the stadium's capacity increased again, raising to 81,473. The roughly 1,600 seats were not physically added, per se, but were created by re-numbering the bleachers in the lower level [16]. In 2006, the venue's first actual construction since 1983 was kicked off, not by Clemson, but by an act of God: a strong rain had washed out a retaining wall before the October 2004 game against Maryland. The mud-pit remained for the 2005 season, with recruits being told -- not entirely disingenuously -- that the area was the site of a future multi-million dollar facility. In 2006, the old west endzone stands came down, and the WestZone facility went up. Pinning down an actual capacity of the stadium has been fairly nebulous (the plush, four-level facility, replete with bars and skyboxes, was accompanied by 1,478 chairback seats), but Clemson sources universally report the new capacity as 81,500, at which it has remained ever since [17].

Pictures of Clemson Memorial Stadium