Tubby Raymond Field at Delaware Stadium

Delaware Stadium (Tubby Raymond Field), one of the finest facilities in the country at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision level and home of the 2003 National Champion Blue Hen football team, begins its 65th season of action in 2016-17.

In addition to the football team calling the venue its home, the University of Delaware men's and women's lacrosse squads have played their home games at Delaware Stadium since the 2010 season.

Delaware Stadium has served as a host site of NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse tournament competition four times, most recently in 2014 for the Men’s Division I Lacrosse Quarterfinals.

Erected in 1952 and enlarged prior to the 1964, 1970, 1972 and the 1975 seasons, the 22,000-seat stadium is the second largest in the Colonial Athletic Association and one of the largest in the nation in FCS football.  Delaware Stadium also underwent extensive renovations in 1992-1993, and again in 2009 when a synthetic FieldTurf was installed.

In 2002, the Delaware Stadium playing surface was dedicated as Tubby Raymond Field, recognizing Delaware’s College Football Hall of Fame head coach who retired following the 2001 season after compiling 300 victories in 36 seasons. 

The Blue Hen football team enters Delaware Stadium from a brick runway underneath the stands directly behind the goalposts on gameday. The team’s smoke-filled exit from the tunnel on to Raymond Field through a gauntlet of Blue Hen Marching Band members lining the field is one of the highlights of football Saturdays at Delaware Stadium.

A plaque which lists the accomplishments of past Blue Hen football teams along with a football hangs from the runway. A new tradition was started in 2000 as Delaware players jump up to touch the plaque before entering the field.

The largest Delaware Stadium crowd was the 23,619 spectators that watched the Blue Hens host Temple, Oct. 27, 1973. Temple won that game 31-8.  Since the stadium opened, Delaware has drawn 22,000 or more fans 55 times, including a season-high 22,075 fans Sept. 9, 2000 vs. The Citadel in the first night game under the new lights. 

Delaware Stadium attendance records have consistently been broken over the last several years as the Blue Hens drew an average of 22,280 fans during the 2004 regular season, breaking the previous mark of 21,163 set in 2003. Delaware’s home attendance average of 20,750 during the 2009 season ranked fourth among all NCAA FCS institutions. 

Delaware was the only school at the NCAA FCS level to average over 20,000 fans for regular season games over a span of 11 seasons from 1999-2009. Delaware Stadium had drawn at least 20,000 fans in 44 straight regular season games prior to the 2009 home finale against Hofstra.

Entering the 2016 football season, the Blue Hens have played 403 games in Delaware Stadium – posting a record of 299-100-4, a winning percentage of .747 over 64 seasons.

The Blue Hens are 20-5 in 25 NCAA playoff games played at Delaware Stadium, including a 2-1 mark during the 1997 and 2000 seasons and a perfect 3-0 mark in 2003 when the Hens easily downed Southern Illinois, Northern Iowa, and Wofford on the way to the national championship game.

The stadium is at the center of the David M. Nelson Athletic Complex that includes the $20.5 million Bob Carpenter Center, a 5,000-seat multi-purpose facility south of the stadium that opened in August, 1992, and the $3.3 million Fred P. Rullo Jr. Stadium, a 2,000-seat lighted ActionTurf field which opened in September, 1998, Stuart and Suzanne Grant Stadium, which was dedicated and upgraded in 2014, Bob Hannah (Baseball) Stadium, which underwent major renovations in the spring of 2014 with artificial turf, new brick dugouts, and a new outfield wall installed, the Delaware Diamond (softball), two synthetic turf practice fields, and two grass practice fields, as well as the Field House, which is a turfed indoor practice facilty.

Other events held in the stadium include the annual Blue-Gold Delaware High School Football All-Star game and University of Delaware graduation ceremonies. Delaware Stadium has been the site of the Blue-Gold All-Star game every year since the game was instituted in the 1950’s.