BAUJAN FIELD

Baujan Field, named for legendary UD football coach Harry Baujan, has stood for decades in the heart of the University of Dayton campus.  Orginally built for UD football in 1925, the historic field is now the home of the University of Dayton men's and women's soccer programs.

A standout end for Knute Rockne's Notre Dame powerhouses between 1913 and 1917, Baujan served with the Army in Europe during World War I.  After a short professional football career that first brought him to Dayton as a member of the Massillon Tigers, he accepted a football coaching position at UD.  He served one season as assistant, then was named head coach prior to the 1923 season, marking the beginning of the "modern era" of Flyer football.

Following his coaching career, Baujan served as UD's Director of Athletics from 1947 to 1964.  In 1961, the University bestowed the name Baujan Field on the football stadium which he built in 1925.  Baujan was inducted into the University of Dayton Athletic Hall of Fame in 1968, and was given the top distinction in college football in 1990, when he was posthumously inducted into the National Football Foundation's College Football Hall of Fame.

Over the years, Baujan Field has seen many teams of various sports play on it.  But since becoming the exclusive home to UD soccer, it has grown into one of the top soccer venues in the Atlantic 10 Conference.  The facility boasts a well-maintained natural grass surface with an irrigartion system as well as a lighting system, allowing for night games.  A new scoreboard on the east end and pair of bleacher seating sections on the south side were new additions to the field in 1999.

The summer of 2000 saw the first major changes to Baujan Field since the concrete seating section from its football days were torn down in 1974.  On the north side of the field, a brick-faced terraced seating section was bulit into the hillside.  The project, totaling more than $500,000 and fully funded with private donations, helped increase the seating capacity to 2,000.

Baujan Field has played host to a number of post-season soccer events.  The Atlantic 10 Women's Soccer Championship was hosted here in 1998 and again in 2002, with the Men's Championship being played in 1996 and 1999.  A first-round match of the 1999 NCAA Women's Soccer Championship called Baujan Field home as the Flyers advanced with a 3-2 win over Evansville.  The men have twice played NCAA Play-In games at the historic venue -- 1997 and 1998.