Don Shaw knows a thing or two about winning.
As one of the winningest head coaches in NCAA Women’s Volleyball History with Stanford, Shaw, 72, has seen success in countless different arenas all throughout the country.
But one stadium in particular holds a special place in his heart: the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
“I remember walking through one of those long Coliseum tunnels, and when you start getting to the light at the end of the tunnel, I remember as a kid walking out and I’d never seen that much green grass in my life,” Shaw said.
Following the Los Angeles Dodgers’ debut at the Coliseum in 1958, Shaw began to frequently attend Dodgers games with his mother. Shaw said no game was more memorable than when Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax equaled the record for strikeouts in a National League game against the San Francisco Giants on Aug. 31, 1959.
“It was unbelievable.”
Koufax’s record game is one of the many historic events the Coliseum staff is reflecting on for its Centennial Celebration – the 100th birthday of the Coliseum.
Initially starting construction in December 1921, the Coliseum took 18 months to complete before its May 1, 1923 groundbreaking ceremony.
According to Marina Fote, the assistant to the general manager of the Coliseum, part of the reason for the Coliseum’s construction was to provide a central location for athletic competition in many forms, including an added boost to L.A.’s bid for the 1932 Summer Olympics.
“It’s been incredible to see how this building can transform into really anything a client can imagine, even going so far as to make it into a race track,” said Fote, alluding to the NASCAR Clash at the Coliseum that debuted in 2022, one of many new and different events the Coliseum is seeking to host in the future as well as the upcoming Super MotoCross World Championship in September.
The Coliseum has been the home stadium for a plethora of L.A. teams including USC Football, UCLA Football, the Dodgers, Rams, Chargers and Raiders. In addition, the Coliseum has also hosted two Super Bowls, three NFL Championships and a World Series.
The Coliseum has also been a concert venue for the most world renowned musicians including Drake, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, U2 and more. The venue also takes pride in its six presidential visits and hosting rallies for historic leaders such as John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul Ⅱ and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Another reason for the Coliseum’s construction was for it to serve as a memorial for those who served in World War I, hence the “memorial” in its name.
To celebrate its centennial anniversary, the Coliseum launched a marketing campaign called “Coliseum Forever,” highlighting the many historic events to take place in the venue and encouraging fans to remember their experiences and “Tell Your Coliseum Story.”
Along with tying the anniversary celebration into different events this year, the Coliseum is lighting the Torch from sunrise to sundown on the first of every month as tribute to the groundbreaking ceremony taking place on May 1, according to Fote.
Joe Furin, the general manager of the Coliseum, said he’s grateful for the venue’s storied past.
“We are very fortunate to have a legacy that’s untouchable,” said Furin, a USC alum.
Furin began working at the Coliseum in 1986 as a marketing intern and worked his way up to event manager before leaving in 1994 to pursue other opportunities in the same industry before returning to the Coliseum in 2011 as assistant general manager. Not long after USC took over the stadium’s operations, Furin was promoted to general manager.
“This was not a 9-to-5 cubicle job,” Furin said. “My office was a football field. My office was the Sports Arena and we got Bruce Springsteen coming in. So how can that not be exciting for anyone?”
While the stadium is celebrating 100 years of history, Furin said the Coliseum team’s approach “has been to weave and integrate all our current opportunities and the ones on the horizon really with this celebration.”
“This is a celebration of a hundred years of an incredible legacy and a bridge to the next hundred years,” Furin said. “We were careful to look at this as not a celebration of a moment in time and, ‘Hey, let’s get a birthday cake and celebrate everything we did.’ It’s more important to talk about how we’re in the middle of an incredibly ongoing legacy and we want to recognize what occurred in the first century, but this is all about as we move forward.”
Fote said she believes the Coliseum team is “the most supportive group.”
“We’ve been called ‘the greatest stadium in the world’ by the NFL, as well as ‘the best in the business,’” Fote said. “So those are two monikers that we take very seriously.”
Scott Lupold, the associate director of sports turf at the Coliseum, agrees with Fote and couldn’t imagine “having a better staff.”
Lupold, 40, started working at the Coliseum in 2017, but has been a USC football fan since he was a little kid.
“The draw of that alone sets this place apart more so than others,” Lupold said. “It’s a pretty cool place to come in and be around every day.”
Lupold said his favorite part of the job is coming into work before anyone else on a game day and seeing an entire empty stadium ready for a football game, knowing 80,000 people will soon enter and see all the work his team did.
For Lupold, being a part of the Coliseum’s Centennial is incredibly meaningful.
“It just feels like it’s a little bit bigger than yourself,” Lupold said. “It’s been around here for so long, so just being around something that gives you that feeling that something is bigger than what you’ve done in the past is pretty special.”
Amidst their celebrations, the Coliseum is also preparing to host events for the 2028 Summer Olympics, becoming the only venue in the entire world to have hosted three Olympic games (1932, 1984). The Coliseum will host part of the opening ceremonies and construct an elevated track on top of the field for track and field events, according to Fote.
Jeff Root, a former Air Force Officer stationed at the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, attended the 1984 Olympics at the Coliseum and was impressed with how long the venue’s been around.
“I think the Coliseum is iconic even though in 1984 it was getting old and very old now,” said Root, 68. “It was very meaningful to attend a venue that is such a big part of Los Angeles’ history.”
Although Root puts the Coliseum in his lower percentile of favorite venues he’s been to due to its old structure, he’s grateful that he was able to experience a large piece of Los Angeles’ history.
“A big part of it is the spectacle. All the people, the cheerleaders, the concessions and so forth,” Root said.
The Coliseum’s resemblance to the iconic Colosseum in Rome isn’t only a beautiful aspect of the building, but actually acts as a sound amplifier according to Elliot McKenzie, an R&B singer who performed the national anthem in the Coliseum at a Rams game.
“The oval shape of the stands on the inside make for really good acoustics,” said McKenzie, 38. “Whenever the audience would scream or cheer, it was extremely loud and it felt very energetic in the building … I’ve never heard an audience cheer that loud before.”
McKenzie said his Coliseum performance was his “best and most exciting.”
“I would definitely put it at the top,” McKenzie said.
For some fans, it’s the Coliseum’s structure and design that captivates them.
“I was always amazed by the Peristyle end of the Coliseum,” said Sal Martinez, 60. “I always thought it was just as special as the Hollywood sign.”
Martinez, a lifelong Los Angeles Rams fan, said that no stadium can compare to the Coliseum because of its history and sense of community, created by local residents who used to let fans park on their front lawns for a small fee.
“I’ve been to a lot of stadiums throughout being a diehard Rams fan,” Martinez said. “I’ll tell people now even today there’s a lot of new stadiums that are built, but nothing compares to walking through the dark tunnel and it’s like all of a sudden you see this bright light and it’s like football heaven for anybody that enjoys history.”
When the Rams returned to Los Angeles in 2016, Martinez and his daughter were thrilled for the opportunity to root for their favorite team in the Coliseum again. They attended their first Rams game day at the Coliseum together.
Martinez is happy for the Rams to have found a “new and beautiful” home in Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, but he’d still rather attend games at the Coliseum.
“Give me a stale hot dog, a warm beer and my football team at the Coliseum,” Martinez said. “That’s what I prefer.”
Furin said the Coliseum plans to continue setting the bar high for its events while adapting to all things evolving.
“20 years ago, it was okay to say, ‘we have food and beverage, hot dogs and beers.’ Now, it’s we have a culinary program and we offer a variety of elevated experiences,” Furin said.
With a combined 20 years of working at the Coliseum, Furin feels grateful to be a part of the historic celebration.
“I’ve been fortunate to have a long career, and so to wrap my career up being part of a 100th anniversary and bridging into the next century of opportunity is special to me,” Furin said.
And obviously, Furin believes no other venue can compare to the Coliseum.
“How many buildings are 100 years old, the size and scale of the Coliseum and able to put in 50 to 60 to 70,000 people through here on a regular basis?”