Balboa Stadium Gets Chance to Relive Some of Its Storied Past Today

Balboa Stadium isn’t really Balboa Stadium anymore, but rather a shell of its once-majestic self. It is in a second infancy foisted upon it by the vagaries of bureaucracy.

It is no longer the graceful horseshoe structure crowned at the open end with a peristyle reminiscent of a Roman forum.

It is now a high school facility with permanent seating for a mere 3,500, adequate perhaps for most high school events but hardly in keeping with its heritage and potential.

And yet it will get a day in the sun today.

World-class athletes such as Steve Scott, Mary Decker Slaney, Valerie Brisco, Joaquim Cruz and Greg Foster will be competing in the Michelob Invitational track and field meet.

Indeed, this will be the first “command performance” event on these grounds since the state high school track and field championships in 1975. And it will be the first open track meet of this magnitude since the Amateur Athletic Union national championships in 1965.

However, the most important thing to contemplate, or understand, is that an event such as this should not be considered the best and the biggest that Balboa Stadium can handle.

This is a time to reflect on what this site, if not this facility, has meant to San Diego.

“Our whole lives used to be built around Balboa Stadium,” said Scotty Harris, who for the last 21 years has been the athletic director at adjacent San Diego High School. “It was the center of everything. If it happened here in San Diego, it happened in Balboa Stadium.”

And it transcended the world of sports and touched on culture, politics, education and military.

George Washington never slept in Balboa Stadium, but . . .

Woodrow Wilson spoke there.

Charles Lindbergh was honored there.

Babe Ruth played there. And so did Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams and Bob Feller.

Jim Thorpe played football there. And so did Red Grange.

Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke there.

Jesse Owens ran there.

Chester Nimitz was honored there.

Bill Tilden played a tennis exhibition there.

Jim Ryun broke the world record for the mile there.

Arthur Godfrey performed there.

Billy Mills beat Gerry Lindgren in a sizzling six-mile run there.

San Diego and Hoover met there annually in an intense and longstanding football rivalry that frequently drew crowds of 15,000 to 20,000 before professional and major college sports eroded interest at the high school level.

Barney Oldfield drove race cars there.

Jane Fonda protested there.

The Beatles sang there.

The Chargers won their only championship there.

There was a there then in San Diego, and Balboa Stadium was it.

All of that began to change when the Chargers, for whom a second tier was built in 1961, abandoned the downtown facility for San Diego Stadium in 1967. They were among the last to come and the first to leave, but who could blame them?

Balboa Stadium was getting old.

The final blow was struck in 1979, when wrecking balls dismantled the entire structure and left an ugly scar under the flight path to Lindbergh Field.

Considerable controversy surrounded the demolition of Balboa Stadium, mainly because it had been deemed unsafe in terms of earthquake safety. It seemed to make sense to remove the second tier and leave the 15,000 lower seats intact. After all, they were made of concrete poured directly on dirt, and all of San Diego would have to fall into the ocean before they were going to go anywhere.

Common sense was blown away, as is often the case, because of bickering among politicians and bureaucrats . . . and so was any remnant of Balboa Stadium.

It is coming back now, slowly and quietly.

The National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame is involved in the renaissance. And so are the Friends of Balboa Stadium, the San Diego Unified School District, the San Diego Community College District and the Amateur Athletic Foundations, which disperses proceeds from the 1984 Olympics.

It is far from what it was, but it has 3,500 permanent seats, modern lighting and a state-of-the-art running track. It is home to more than 100 events a year, including football games, track meets, soccer matches, graduations and even union meetings.

But Balboa Stadium has some growing to do.

“San Diego,” Harris said, “is the only major city without a medium-sized activity center. Everybody else has an outdoor facility seating around 15,000.”

A facility that size, which Harris estimates would cost approximately $800,000, would be the only one of its kind in San Diego County. In a different way, Balboa Stadium would once again be a special place for special events.

What Balboa Stadium is doing today is reminding us, maybe awakening us, to its place in history . . . and giving us a chance to consider how the past might, and maybe even should, repeat itself.