Whittier Field is the outdoor stadium of Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...

. Located in Brunswick, Maine

Brunswick, Maine

Brunswick is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 20,278 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area. Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, , and the...

, it is the field for Bowdoin football, Bowdoin outdoor track and field, and the Maine Distance Festival.

Whittier Athletic Field

Designed by & named for Bowdoin College alumni and professor Frank N. Whittier, the field opened on October 3, 1896 with a football game between Bowdoin and Maine State. Whittier's interest in athletics also led him to help with the design and construction of the new Sargent Gymnasium and Hyde Athletic Building (now known as the Smith Union).

Hubbard Grandstand

The Hubbard Grandstand was designed and built in 1903. The original grandstands are 122 feet long, 37 feet wide and seat nearly 600 people. The Grandstand was dedicated on June 22, 1904. Total capacity of all the seating is 9,000. It was designed in the Shingle Style

Shingle Style architecture

The Shingle style is an American architectural style made popular by the rise of the New England school of architecture, which eschewed the highly ornamented patterns of the Eastlake style in Queen Anne architecture....

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Jack Magee Track

The track around the field was built in 1970 as a tribute to Bowdoin coach Jack Magee, who retired in 1960. The six lane all-weather track was renovated during the summer of 2005 with a grant from the Nike corporation.

Olympic history

The Magee Track was the site of a 1972 Olympic Training Camp that brought American Olympic athletes including Steve Prefontaine

Steve Prefontaine

Steve Roland "Pre" Prefontaine was an American middle and long-distance runner. Prefontaine once held the American record in the seven distance track events from the 2,000 meters to the 10,000 meters...

 to Bowdoin for the summer before the Munich Olympics

1972 Summer Olympics

The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from August 26 to September 11, 1972....

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The track was the home track for Joan Benoit Samuelson

Joan Benoit

Joan Benoit Samuelson is an American marathon runner, who won gold at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the year that the women's marathon was introduced. As a result she was the first ever women's Olympic marathon champion. Benoit Samuelson still holds the fastest times for an American...

, a 1981 Bowdoin graduate and
the 1984 Olympic Gold Medal Marathon champion.