BOISE, Idaho — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…February 14, 2007, 15 years ago today:
The next step in the evolution of Boise State football is marked by the groundbreaking on the $36 million sky suite/press box addition to Bronco Stadium. The project included a state-of-the-art press box, 38 luxury suites, 44 loge boxes and 750 club seats, with all but about 200 of the club seats already sold before the first dirt was turned. If not the biggest milestone in Bronco Stadium history, it was certainly the most expensive. It would be named the Stueckle Sky Center after Duane and Lori Steuckle, two of the Broncos’ most prominent benefactors.
The ceremony came just more than six weeks after the Broncos had upset Oklahoma 43-42 in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, and the program was flush with momentum. The old press box, designed with Division II football in mind, was torn down, and a temporary wooden structure was built to get through the 2007 season (affectionately called the “Bronco Treehouse”). The Stueckle Sky Center opened in August, 2008, coinciding with the first game of superstar Kellen Moore’s Boise State career.
It was most elaborate of many expansions over the years at the facility now known as Albertsons Stadium. The entire original facility, with a capacity of 14,500, was constructed at a cost of only $2.2 million in 1970. The east side upper deck opened in 1975, increasing capacity to 20,000. Portable end zone bleachers were added to the north end zone in 1979 and to the south end zone in 1988, bringing capacity to 22,600. The corners in the south end zone were constructed to meet an old Division I-A requirement of minimum 30,000-seat stadiums and were finished in 1997. Permanent end zone structures were built in each end zone in 2012, increasing capacity to its current total of 36,387.
Now, as Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey likes to say, “What’s next?” There are plans to renovate the east side of Albertsons Stadium to bring it into the 21st century. Bronco Nation anxiously awaits a groundbreaking for that. The stadium could be expanded to a capacity of 47,000 at some point. That’s incumbent upon the current version of the facility filling up on a regular basis first.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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