William Nicholas: Guided Coliseum Growth

William H. (Bill) Nicholas, who guided the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum through its greatest period of growth and then presided over the birth of the adjacent Sports Arena, has died.

Nicholas, who retired in 1973 after 27 years as general manager, was 85 when he died Wednesday in a Pasadena hospital of a stroke.

The Coliseum complex he left behind nearly 20 years ago bore little resemblance to the one he took over in 1946.

Then, the gigantic bowl was marking its 26th year in a financial quandary, having continued to lose money since the Olympic Games of 1932.

But when he bowed out, the facility was a moneymaker and home to USC, UCLA and the Los Angeles Rams football teams. Earlier, in their first years in Los Angeles, the Dodgers had played there, as had the Los Angeles Dons of the old All-American Football Conference. Still to come was the Raiders football team.

Next door, the Sports Arena was completed in time for the Democratic National Convention of 1960, during which John F. Kennedy was nominated for President. At various times, it has been home to the USC and UCLA basketball teams, the professional Lakers and Clippers basketball teams, and the professional hockey Kings.

Nicholas pared the Coliseum deficit while planning a $4-million renovation project that resulted in fewer seats but theater-style chairs, then a rarity in outdoor entertainment.

Several national attendance records were set in the Nicholas era of multiple uses, among them the Dec. 6, 1947, crowd of 105,236 for a USC-Notre Dame game and 102,368 for a Rams-San Francisco 49ers contest in 1957.

The Dodgers drew nearly 300,000 fans for three World Series games in 1959, and on May 7 of that year, 93,103 came through the Coliseum turnstiles for a game and tribute to Roy Campanella, the Dodger catcher crippled in an automobile accident. It remains a single-game record.

Then there was the Billy Graham Crusade of Sept. 8, 1963, with 134,534 inside the Coliseum and an estimated 10,000 or more outside listening on loudspeakers. And the first Super Bowl was played there in 1967.

Nicholas was born in Boulder, Colo., and came to Pasadena with his family. He graduated from high school there, and was attending USC as an engineering and public administration major when he was chosen to help design the park that surrounds the Rose Bowl.

By 1936, he was superintendent of parks for Pasadena, and in 1945, assistant city manager. He took over the Coliseum the next year.

After retiring, Nicholas became chairman of the Tournament of Roses Football Committee, and gradually curtailed his activities as he grew older.

In 1990, the Coliseum Commission voted to salute Nicholas with a bronze plaque in the Coliseum’s Memorial Court of Honor alongside similar tributes to such giants of athletics as Knute Rockne, Jesse Owens and Howard Jones.

Survivors include his wife, Myrtle; a son, Gerald; a daughter, Joanne, and four grandchildren.

Services will be private. Donations can be made to the Tournament of Roses, 381 S. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena 91105.