Some people describe paradise as drinking a pina colada on a beach. Some people describe paradise as a sip of hot chocolate at the perfect temperature after a long run on the mountain. I found paradise over this past spring break in Philadelphia, Penn.
I have been very privileged as a sports fan in my short 21 years. I've seen multiple World Series games live. I've been to countless NBA playoff games and even once sat in a luxury box for the Orange Bowl. I've seen an outrageous amount of stadiums all over the country from the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. to Progressive Field, formerly known as Jacobs Field, in Cleveland, to the new Marlins Park in Miami. Yet, nothing will compare to the experience I felt simply walking into a two-tiered brick stadium over 100 years old.
Franklin Field, located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), was only the second two-tiered stadium ever built in America, opening 1895. Franklin Field has been home to the Penn Relays, perhaps the most well-known track meet in the world outside of the Olympic Games, since its construction. The stadium has hosted an NFL Championship, a Presidential nomination acceptance speech, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936 and of course Penn Quaker football. Franklin Field has so much history. Even the first ever football game broadcasted on the radio originated from the historic grounds in 1922.
All of that history, all of the nostalgia, hit me at once as I stepped onto the hallowed field on a gloomy evening over spring break.
Franklin Field is not such an assuming structure when you approach it from the east, as I had. You walk past a statue of Benjamin Franklin, the founder of Penn and the namesake of the stadium, about 100 yards before you reach the entrance. Once you reach the cast iron gates of the stadium, you assumed you probably won't be able to get in on a Tuesday evening in March until you find that the door just so happens to be open. Then you walk in...and it hits you all at once.
I wasn't expecting to find paradise in an empty 118-year-old stadium, but I did. Something about walking into a place with so much history finds you searching for words. Just a few days earlier I had made my first visit to "the world's most famous arena," Madison Square Garden in New York City, and yet nothing could compare to the awe-inspiring moment that occurred as I simply stepped foot into the stadium. The stadium was barren save for a few Penn athletes running the track. The stadium stood so eerie and silent that a song from a bird would have disrupted the moment. You walk around the stadium, even in vast emptiness and the thoughts in your mind suddenly start turning. You all of a sudden can smell the concessions and you can see the people. Men in suits, ties and fedoras. Women in sun dresses and hats. The picturesque stadium, even in its state of nothingness, makes you yearn for old time sports when football was played for the love of the game.
I refused to step on the actual field, even though it was completely empty, for I did not want to ruin the moment for myself. My friend and I then decided we wished to explore the cavernous concourses. We eventually found our way into the first tier of the stadium and sat down on the metal bleachers and took in the site. The entire stadium is filled with aluminum benches, save for a few hundred red and blue seats at the 50 yard line on the south side of the field. I look up from my trance and notice the press box in all of its glory hanging from the second tier. We venture skywards. Eventually, we reached the rickety old metal deathtrap after climbing what felt like 60 flights of stairs that are woefully out of code. Inside the box, you can see Center City, Philadelphia jutting out from behind the horseshoe end of the stadium, and yet you imagine a time when Center City was not the concrete jungle it is today, and suddenly it disappears. Sitting in the box, I noticed a telephone and realized that when this single telephone was installed and the word "internet" had not even been invented. I sit in the plastic chair, leaning on the blue wooden table and wonder what it might have been like watching a game perched here, high above the action.
Paradise is something hard to describe in words and phrases...but ole' mighty Penn might have done the trick for me. Paradise doesn't mean euphoria, it means finding a place that simply FEELS euphoric, a place that you can escape to. An empty brick stadium that has for too long stood empty did just the trick for me.
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