30 years ago, Sanford Stadium helped launch a soccer boom. Now it’s back.

ATHENS — The last time soccer was played in Sanford Stadium, it helped make the women’s game matter in America.

The United States won Olympic gold that day in 1996, beating China 2-1 before 76,481 people. The crowd was enormous. The significance was bigger.

“It was a transcendental moment in this country,” said Dick Hudson, who coordinated Olympic events in Athens. “People bought into it. It was magical.”

Thirty years later, soccer is returning to the iconic college football venue. This time, it will be played between the hedges.

The University of Georgia women’s soccer team will host James Madison University on Thursday, commemorating the anniversary of the U.S. victory and aiming to create another historic crowd.

“Our challenge to Bulldog fans is to set a new national record for the highest attended college soccer match in NCAA history,” UGA athletics director Josh Brooks said in a statement.

The current record for a women’s collegiate soccer match is 14,410, set in 1999. The men’s record is 22,512, set in 1980.

University of Georgia fans routinely fill the cavernous Sanford Stadium to watch the Bulldogs play football. The women's soccer team also hopes to draw a big crowd when it takes over the pitch Aug. 20, the first time soccer has been played in the Athens stadium since the 1996 Olympics. (Jason Getz/AJC 2023)

Getting soccer into Sanford Stadium in 1996 was not easy.

Atlanta’s selection as the host of the Olympics drew criticism. Athens, Greece, was the sentimental choice for many to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympic Games.

Events would be played in Athens.

But not the one where the games originated.

As plans were organized in Atlanta, FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, said it did not want soccer sharing a facility with track and field.

Billy Payne, the chair of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, was an Athens native and former UGA football player. Hudson said the choice of venue was obvious to Payne.

By the 1990s, Sanford Stadium’s capacity had swelled to 86,000. Payne and former UGA football coach Vince Dooley, then the school’s athletics director, traveled to Spain, France and Los Angeles to watch soccer matches and study venues.

Sanford Stadium could handle the event, they agreed.

But there was a problem.

The Chinese privet hedges that had lined the playing field since the stadium opened in 1929 left no room for a regulation soccer pitch. They had to come out. Some Bulldogs fans were outspoken about ripping up what many considered a defining feature of Sanford Stadium.

“There’s always some reactions,” Hudson said, “and people who were not happy spoke louder than those people who didn’t care or were happy.”

A University of Georgia graduate takes a piece of the famous hedges that line the football field at Sanford Stadium before the start of Spring Undergraduate Commencement on May 8. (Jason Getz/AJC)

As it turned out, the timing was good for the health of the hedges. UGA announced they were infested with microscopic worms. Though some viewed this as a convenient excuse, Hudson said fencing inside the hedges had rusted and needed repairs, too. Removal and replanting was necessary for both the soccer games and Sanford’s long-term aesthetics.

Cuttings were taken from the existing hedges and cultivated so the greenery could return after the Olympics.

The hedges came out. A soccer field went in. The playing surface had to be flattened, too. Hudson said it was sloped about 12 inches for drainage.

Preceding the games, UGA transformed into something few campuses have become: an Olympic hub. Hundreds of athletes from Australia and Sweden stayed in Athens and trained at UGA’s facilities. The U.S. women’s soccer team lived on campus during the summer of 1996, with Rutherford Hall serving as its home base.

The U.S. arrived in Athens with a chance to win the first Olympic gold medal in women’s soccer. Following the 1994 men’s World Cup hosted in the United States, the women’s game was still searching for a foothold in the American sporting landscape.

The United States defeated Norway in the semifinals at Sanford Stadium, earning a place in the gold-medal match.

Four days later, they returned and beat China, with Tiffeny Milbrett scoring the winning goal in the 68th minute.

“ (Dooley) told me after that, ‘I’ve never seen so much excitement in this stadium,’” Hudson said. “I thought that said a lot coming from the coach.”

The U.S. women's soccer team enjoys a golden moment and jumps for joy as time runs out on their historic 2-1 gold medal win over China at Sanford Stadium in Athens during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. (David Tulis/AJC)

The gold medal match wasn’t broadcast on TV in full. Only about 20 minutes of the match was shown on NBC.

But members of that team, including Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain, became stars. Three years later, the U.S. women won the World Cup before a sellout crowd at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

“The 1996 team paved the way and took the sport mainstream, across the country and here in the South,” said UGA women’s soccer coach Keidane McAlpine.

McAlpine was immediately on board with playing a regular season match in Sanford Stadium. The former Southern Cal coach guided his teams in a few games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the Trojans play football.

The UGA women’s soccer team usually plays its home games at the much-smaller Turner Soccer Complex, where it drew about 1,500 spectators for its home opener last season.

McAlpine said football coach Kirby Smart has supported the event. Georgia opens its football season Sept. 5 against Tennessee State. The hedges will remain in place.

Casual fans likely won’t notice the altered pitch, McAlpine said, which will be smaller than a regulation field. But, he said, it will require UGA to change its tactics.

It will be worth it, McAlpine said, for his players to experience the atmosphere in such a large venue and in front of an expected large crowd.