The first to be persuaded to come was Georgia. "This was pretty hard to do because Coach Wally Butts loved to play in Columbus," Beard remembers, "...but we kept working on it until we got the game changed." 

Georgia won the first game played in Athens in 1959, ironically with Georgia guard Pat Dye, later Auburn's coach, recovering a fumble to win the game for the Bulldogs. The next year's game would be played in Auburn, and Jordan and Beard realized they would need still more seats in the stadium. 

The time had come to close in one of the end zones, connecting the two stands at one end. A memorandum from L. E. Funchess, Director of the Campus Planning Committee, to Beard, dated March 3, 1960, reports approval of the plan to close in the south end zone, at a cost of nearly a half-million dollars. The bleacher seats which had stood there were moved to the north end, providing still more seats. A large scoreboard replaced the previous one which had been built by an engineering class years earlier. In addition, dressing rooms were built under the new stands.

An overall plan for the stadium's development began to take shape with the 1960 expansion. The sidelines stands had been built into hillsides, so the closing of the endzones would have blocked air circulation within the stadium. To remedy this, risers were left out of the lower seats in the south end zone. This, along with construction of a continuous interior concourse, was modeled on the Rice Stadium in Texas. The concourse allowed direct access for first aid vehicles and transports to any point within the stadium. 

The project was a success. The Georgia game sold out quickly, (with Auburn winning this time,) and both Georgia and Auburn officials were pleased with the results of their new arrangement. The city of Columbus, however, felt betrayed, a sentiment to be reflected in Birmingham nearly thirty years later.

Horseshoe to Bowl

Winning seasons and bowl invitations continued through the 1960s, and thoughts quickly turned to another expansion. Beard sums up the feelings of Auburn's leaders at the time: "Adding...seats had enabled us to have a representative home schedule and collect the stadium rental that would be so vital to the future of the program." With this in mind, and in view of the continued sellouts in the horseshoe-shaped Cliff Hare Stadium of the 1960s, plans moved forward for the complete enclosure of the stadium by 1970.

The Board of Trustees, on October 25, 1968, unanimously approved a proposal to begin study for enlarging Cliff Hare Stadium, "due to the continued increase in student enrollments and the demand for football tickets at home games in Auburn." The Board went to great lengths to specify that this was contingent on acquisition of funding, which must not come from the school's general funds. 

The Board agreed by June of 1969 that "it appears necessary and advisable to enlarge the capacity of Cliff Hare Stadium, enlarge the present press box facilities, and construct a new running track facility." (The south end zone construction in 1960 had produced an unintended consequence: It obscured part of the fine running track which had surrounded the field, saddening Auburn's track coach, Wilbur Hutsell. The coach feared visiting track teams might hide fresh runners under the stands to sneak in during a race. The new track would be named in Hutsell's honor.) The resolution also called for modification and enlargement of the dressing facilities. 

The June resolution noted that an act had been passed in the first special session of the 1969 state legislature "to permit such construction and to make provisions for the financing of same." With the money no longer a major concern, plans moved ahead quickly. In the mean time, the Board's Naming of Buildings Committee recommended that the former field house, which would be sealed off from the stadium by the north stands enclosure and which was being renovated for classroom and lab use, be named for the late Dean George Petrie, who had connections with both the sciences and athletics at Auburn. 

The Monsanto Company, on March 24, 1969, proposed in a memo to Coach Beard the installation of AstroTurf in Jordan-Hare. Their letter lists the cost of covering Auburn's playing field in artificial turf at $212,500.00. Turf had become popular among colleges in the late 1960s, but despite consideration, Beard and Jordan rejected the idea. They had misgivings about the safety of the artificial surface. "It turned out that we were right," Beard says. 

Expansion plans were finalized at a Board meeting on November 22, 1969. The Trustees were clearly enthusiastic about Auburn football: "Dr. Philpott (the university president) reviewed several details concerning Auburn's invitation to play the University of Houston in the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl on December 31, 1969." When Philpott noted the presence of Coach Jordan and Coach Beard, the Trustees broke out in wild applause. The Board unanimously approved a nineteen year bond issue to finance the north stands construction, and then gathered around Dr. Philpott to look at an artist's conception of the finished stadium. 

Auburn added an additional detail to the north end zone enclosure, one that made school officials proud. "It was something that had not been done in any of the stadiums we played in," Beard says. "We made provisions for wheelchairs and handicapped spectators. This really attracted a lot of attention in the state." 

The final cost of the addition, including the relocation of Hutsell Track, was just over one and a quarter million dollars. Tiny Cliff Hare Stadium had grown into a full-fledged bowl, and time had come to honor the coach whose success enabled the growth to occur.
"Today's game will be Auburn's first SEC game in newly-named Jordan-Hare Stadium, which was dedicated in pre-game ceremonies." So wrote Buddy Davidson in the official program for the Ole Miss game of 1973. The honor recognized "Jordan's lasting contributions to Auburn football." Auburn's stadium had become the first in the nation to be named for an active coach. Jordan would coach the remainder of that season and two more before retiring after the 1975 season.

Writing in the program for the dedication game in 1973, David Housel, current athletic director and former sports information director, reflected back on the competitive advantage Auburn had gained with its fine home stadium. He called the newly-christened Jordan-Hare Stadium "perhaps the hardest place in the country for a visiting football team to win. Bar none." He supports this bold statement with a little history: While the facility was known as Auburn Stadium, from 1939 to 1949, Auburn did not lose a single game of its twelve played there (with two ties.) During the Cliff Hare Stadium period, from 1949 to 1973, Auburn posted a record of 80-13-1, which included a run of thirty straight wins at home (with thirteen shutouts.) Housel points out that many of these wins came against such powers as Georgia, Florida, and Georgia Tech. Auburn would enjoy a similar run during the 1980s under Coach Pat Dye, and again in the mid-1990s under Coach Terry Bowden.

Housel also wrote of the monetary advantage for visitors playing in Jordan-Hare.
He described Jordan-Hare as "an extremely popular place to play football" in the South, despite Auburn's considerable home field advantage. "The reason," he explains, "is money, the greenstuff without which an athletic program cannot function." With a tremendous season ticket base and consistently large crowds, even the smallest visiting school enjoys a healthy payday, "one of the largest in the United States," according to Housel. 

Continue to Part Four:  Jordan-Hare: Fifth-Largest City in Alabama