When the University of Hawai'i football team lays Nike cleat to Sportexe turf at the Louisiana Superdome on New Year's Day, the imprint they'll leave will mark not just another milestone in the history of the program but another entry in the ongoing narrative of one of the country's most storied and controversial sports venues.

"We always called it the 'Eighth Wonder of the World,' " said Rich Miano, who visited the dome three times in his NFL career. "Historically, it was always more about the facility than the team that played there. Walking in there, the thing that struck you was just how immense it is."

Fixed like a perpetually waxing moon on the skyline of downtown New Orleans, the Superdome has for more than three decades mirrored the hope, tragedy and renewal of its surrounding community.

As one of the most recognizable stadiums in the country, the Dome served as the parchment for some of the sports world's most indelible moments, from North Carolina freshman Michael Jordan's championship-winning buzzer beater to the '86 Chicago Bears' Super Bowl dismantling of the New England Patriots to boxer Roberto Duran's infamous "No mas" surrender.

At the same time, many will also recognize the Dome as a symbol of the human devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina and the failure of state and federal officials to address the suffering of the largely disadvantaged, largely African-American population of overnight refugees.

BOLD INNOVATION

It was sports entrepreneur David Dixon who first proposed the idea of building a mammoth indoor stadium as a means of gaining approval from then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle for a professional football franchise in New Orleans.

Several NFL exhibition games in wide-open Tulane Stadium had been marred by tempestuous weather, and Rozelle reportedly had told Dixon that he would not approve a franchise without a domed stadium.

Dixon gained the ear of then-Gov. John McKeithen, who saw the economic potential that both the franchise and the facility held. McKeithen pushed approval for the Dome through the state legislature in 1966, just as Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs was working a deal with Rozelle to gain approval for the franchise (Rozelle needed Boggs' committee to approve the merger of the AFL and NFL).

Rozelle announced that New Orleans would receive a franchise on Nov. 1, 1966. A week later, the state legislature approved a constitutional amendment that would allow for the construction of the Dome.

Construction began on Aug. 11, 1971, and stretched on for four politically turbulent years.

"A lot of people wanted it built outside (the city) on land they owned and controlled," said Arthur Davis, whose architecture company oversaw the project. "It was held up for five years because of outside influences."

The project was ambitious, to say the least. Dixon and McKeithen had visited the Houston Astrodome, then considered a major innovation in stadium design, and McKeithen was set on having a similar structure — only bigger.

As designed by Davis' partner Nathaniel Curtis, the gargantuan steel and concrete structure would stand 273 feet, with a total area of 269,000 square feet, capped by a 9.7-acre non-retractable roof. The scale of the project was unprecedented, and at least one structural engineer predicted the structure would collapse.

MONUMENTAL SCALE

"We were pioneers," Davis said in a phone interview with The Advertiser. "The building itself was significant architecturally and the scale was monumental."

The location of the Dome was just as ambitious. Following Dixon and McKeithen's vision of the Dome as a hub of commercial development, planners decided — not without vigorous argument — to build the structure on a 52-acre parcel on Poydras Street in the middle of the central business district.

With the Superdome on one end of Poydras and the Rivergate Exhibition Center on the other, development in the downtown area would flourish in the 1970s and '80s.

"It certainly established an important anchor in the heart of the city," Davis said. "Many other stadiums made the mistake of building out of the city. The Superdome is right in the center of the business and economic (area) and it created a certain amount of demand for commercial projects around it."

The construction was not without its hiccups. Only after the massive dome was lowered into place did builders realize the folly of not addressing the thousands of pigeons that had made their home in the unfinished structure. A heated debate over how to remove the winged squatters ensued.

By the time the Superdome finally opened in August 1975 — with a preseason game between the hometown Saints and the Houston Oilers — the price tag had ballooned from an estimated $46 million to $165 million.

Yet, according to historian Douglas Brinkley, author of "The Great Deluge," a comprehensive on-the-ground retelling of the Katrina story, the city embraced the new facility as the gateway to a more prosperous future.

"The Superdome gave New Orleans a sense of modernity with its spaceship design," Brinkley told The Advertiser. "Once it was built, it made locals feel that their city was on the edge of tomorrow."

GRAND SPORTS STAGE

The sense of optimism blossomed in the late 1970s and early 1980s as New Orleans reaped the rewards of a prosperous but short-lived oil boom.

"People expected that there would be high-tech development and big corporations moving in," Brinkley said. "There was a feeling of renaissance and it was centered around the Superdome."

In remarkably short order, the Dome became synonymous with big-time sports and entertainment, providing one of the grandest stages imaginable for moments that would become part of the nation's collective archive of classic sports memories.

In 1978, the first year in which the Super Bowl was aired on prime time, the Dallas Cowboys and their impenetrable Doomsday Defense rolled over the Denver Broncos, 27-10. It would be the first of six Super Bowls played at the Super Dome to date.

In September of that year, upstart Leon Spinks stunned an out-of-shape Muhammad Ali to take the heavyweight title.

Four NCAA Final Fours have been staged at the Dome, each an instant classic: Jordan's last-minute game-winner in 1982, another game-clinching jumper by Indiana's Keith Smart in 1987, Michigan prodigy Chris Webber's ill-fated timeout in 1993, and Syracuse freshman Carmelo Anthony's triumphant collegiate farewell in 2003.

The facility has also hosted major entertainment, social and political events, from the 1981 Rolling Stones concert that set a record for attendance at an indoor venue (87,500), to the 1988 Republican National Convention, in which George H.W. Bush received his party's re-nomination.

The fortunes of the city could not keep pace. By 1985, the oil boom had turned bust and promises of new prosperity and place among the major commerce empires of America were lost to a slow parade of box stores and retail outlets.

"If you look at Minnesota, there are (20) Fortune 500 companies," Brinkley said. "New Orleans has one (Entergy Corp. ranks No. 217)."

"If you want to have tourism, you have to have a convention center and you have to have an arena," Brinkley said. "The Superdome is anchored to the hopes of this town."

And while larger, more innovative stadiums have been built over the past three decades, none is more closely associated with its native city than the Dome.

"St. Louis has the Gateway Arch. Philadelphia has Independence Hall. There are many landmarks that you immediately associate with their locale, and the Superdome is immediately recognizable as being iconic of New Orleans," Brinkley said.

These days, the Superdome is also immediately recognizable as the site of horrific confusion, anger and suffering during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

The costliest natural disaster in U.S. history (More than 1,800 killed and $81 billion in damage) set upon New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, overwhelming the federally built levee system and causing massive flooding in and around the city.

More than 9,000 evacuees with nowhere else to go were taken to the Superdome to ride out the storm, along with more than 500 National Guardsmen. The Dome eventually housed more than 20,000 people as search-and-rescue missions brought in additional evacuees and thousands of others displaced by the storm sought help at what Mayor Ray Nagin later dubbed "the shelter of last resort."

Although the Dome had been used as an emergency shelter twice before, it was not designed for that purpose. The storm ripped two holes in the roof, stripped away a protective layer of rubber and flooded portions of the interior.

Conditions inside deteriorated due to a lack of fresh water and supplies and the inability of guardsmen to adequately police the massive and increasingly desperate crowd. The frustration grew as days passed without decisive action from city, state and federal agencies.

The Superdome was completely evacuated by Sept. 9 and was shut down indefinitely. College games were canceled or moved to alternate sites. The Saints spent the season playing "home" games in Baton Rouge, San Antonio and New Jersey.

Despite objections by residents who felt it was outrageous to repair a sports facility while so much of the state was left in disrepair, the Dome was repaired and refurbished at a cost of more than $190 million, the bulk of which was covered by FEMA.

The Saints reopened the Dome on Sept. 25, 2006, amid great hype and anticipation, with a stirring 23-3 victory over the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football. The good feelings kindled that evening would continue as the Saints marched to the NFC Championship game.

Still, the memories of what had occurred at the Superdome just a year earlier lingered.

"It's changed now," Brinkley said. "The Superdome is seen as a sort of crippled war memorial to Katrina. It's hard to go inside and not recall August 2005."

Throughout its turbulent history, the Superdome has enjoyed national prominence through its association with the Sugar Bowl.

The bowl was held at now-defunct Tulane Stadium from its inception in 1935 until 1975, when it moved to the newly opened Superdome.

Under the old BCS system, two national champions were crowned at the Sugar Bowl: Florida State in 2000 and LSU in 2004.

The game, which pits the Southeastern Conference champion against another top-tier team, moved to the Georgia Bowl in 2005 while the Superdome was being repaired — Georgia lost to Virginia Tech 38-35 — but returned last year as LSU beat Notre Dame, 41-14.

"The Sugar Bowl is when the town takes a bow at center stage," Brinkley says. "Mardi Gras and the Sugar Bowl are what New Orleans are recognized for nationally, and people here get very excited."

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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