NEW YORK—When Duke and Indiana take the field on Saturday, players on both teams will do something that few athletes in any sport get to do: play at Yankee Stadium.
Although not traditionally known as a football venue, Yankee Stadium has played host to the New Era Pinstripe Bowl since 2010. When the players emerge from the dugouts Saturday at 3:30, they will be just a few hundred feet from Monument Park, where the greatest Yankees of all time are enshrined.
“I think that’s going to be a once in a lifetime [opportunity],” Duke safety Dwayne Norman said. “I don’t think I ever would have had the pleasure of coming to Yankee Stadium before this. I think this is going to be great and something I can tell my kids about in 20 or 30 years.”
Although the new Yankee Stadium has only been home to football since 2010, the old Yankee Stadium had a deep football history.
The House That Ruth Built opened in 1923 and hosted to a number of college football games, beginning with a 3-0 victory for Syracuse against Pittsburgh on October 20, 1923. Since then, Yankee Stadium has been a site for some of the sports’ most memorable games, including the Baltimore Colts’ 23-17 victory over the New York Giants in the 1958 NFL Championship, known as the “Greatest Game Ever Played.” The Giants called the stadium home from 1956 to 1973.
The old Yankee Stadium was demolished once the new venue was completed, but the long history of football in the Bronx—plus the unrivaled success of the Yankees on the diamond—adds to the excitement that comes with playing there Saturday.
‘It’s pretty amazing,” Duke center Matt Skura said. “Just the history behind it—the Yankees are kind of the backbone of American history and it’s going to be amazing.”
Being part of the history is one intriguing aspect of playing in Yankee Stadium, but for other players, its connection to baseball is what makes playing there special.
“Just being a big baseball fan, it’s huge,” Indiana linebacker Marcus Oliver said. “It’s just crazy, all the things that have been done here.”
Yankee Stadium is not the only Big Apple landmark that the two squads have enjoyed this week. Players from both teams visiting Times Square, took in a performance by the Rockettes and rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
For some players, the bowl game marks their first trip to New York, giving them a chance to relish in the sites and sounds of America's largest city.
“The city is huge,” Oliver said. “The buildings are huge, the pizza is huge—everything’s huge here.”
The sightseeing in the Big Apple can make for a distraction. But when the time comes for the opening kickoff Saturday, the Blue Devils and Hoosiers will be focused Duke and Indiana on adding their names to Yankee Stadium lore.
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