ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Chris Clark glances out the window overlooking the Buffalo Bills’ long-time home, Highmark Stadium, and can still picture what the site resembled before it opened in 1973.
The 73-year-old Clark’s memories go beyond the days of tailgating and smashing of tables, comeback victories and miserable defeats, and before the likes of Josh Allen, Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith and O.J. Simpson ever stepped foot on the artificial field.
In the 1960s, Monsignor Leo McCarthy would send Clark and a bunch of his South Buffalo friends to the abandoned farm field and former Dupont explosives storage and testing site, where they’d let beagles loose to chase rabbits. The purpose of the exercise was to keep the kids out of mischief, said Clark, now the Bills vice president of security.
“What they wouldn’t do to keep me out of jail,” he said with a laugh.
It certainly worked for Clark. In becoming an Erie County sheriff’s deputy, he’s spent much of his life in and around the stadium, from directing traffic on game days in the 1970s to the current job he’s held since 2006.
And it’s with a sense of melancholy Clark approaches Sunday, when the Bills close the regular season by hosting the New York Jets in what could well be the final game at the facility.
“I know there’s a big, beautiful prize across the street,” Clark said, referring to the Bills’ new $2.1 billion stadium set to open next season.
“But it’s like walking out the door of the home you got married,” he added. “We’re almost ready to close the doors on my second home.”
Clark enjoyed a front-row seat to everything the stadium has had to offer — including hosting the Rolling Stones and the inaugural NHL Winter Classic in 2008. It’s where country music stars Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney were arrested for taking off on a sheriff’s department horse during a concert in 2000.
Clark has witnessed three colleagues survive getting hit by cars while directing traffic. He remembers watching in awe from the roof of the administration building as the Bills overcame a 32-point deficit for a 41-38 overtime win over the Houston Oilers in a 1992 wild-card playoff.
And he’s handled security for various coaches, general managers, a former president, Bill Clinton, and a pop icon, Taylor Swift.
The bonds and memories made at a stadium affectionately coined “The Ralph,” in honor of the team’s late founder and owner Ralph Wilson, hold true for players and coaches.
“To be honest, when I have to call it Highmark Stadium, I do. But I love The Ralph. I’m like, that’s the perfect name,” Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly said.
The fondest memory over his 11-year career in Buffalo was making his Bills debut in 1986 and taking the field to greet his parents and five brothers in the stands.
Hall of Fame running back Thurman Thomas described the stadium’s closing as bittersweet.
“The only way that we can leave that stadium and leave it the way it should be with all those memories will be the best memory of all: going to the Super Bowl and winning,” he said.
Such a feat would certainly bring closure to what Thomas and the Kelly-era Bills failed to do in losing four straight Super Bowl appearances in the 1990s.
This year’s team has as good of a shot as any, having clinched its seventh straight playoff berth, but will open the postseason on the road. Buffalo currently is the AFC’s No. 7-seeded team and can climb no higher than No. 5.
It’s at the stadium where Mary Wilson got her introduction to football when she and Ralph began dating before marrying in 1999.
“All those years and all the people we’ve had in our box, yeah, Ralph did it right,” Mary Wilson said. “They built a great stadium. Every seat was great.”
Though large in having at one time an 80,000-plus seating capacity, the stadium’s three-level design still provides a sense of intimacy, especially in the lower bowl where fans are mere yards away from the field.
Despite her ties to the past, Wilson looks forward to attending games across the street.
“It’s saying hello to the new,” she said.
For coach Sean McDermott, the future can wait.
“I’m emotional about it,” he said. “I look across out my window and I see the stadium and it’s almost, I don’t want to say sad — it’s not a sad day — but it is a little sad.”
On Sunday, following a 13-12 loss to Philadelphia, McDermott was among the last to leave the stadium after spending a few extra moments savoring the memories of his nine seasons in Buffalo.
“Life moves fast. And it’s been a special place for a lot of people,” McDermott said, before looking ahead to Sunday. “We owe it to the stadium and to the memories that exist in that stadium to go out the right way here.”
The game provides a historical bookend. Buffalo’s first regular-season game at the facility was a 9-7 win over the Jets in which kicker John Leypoldt hit three field goals.
There’s been many duds and breath-taking outings since.
Fans flooded the field after a 1980 season-opening 17-7 win over Miami, ending Buffalo’s 20-game losing streak to the Dolphins. There was Buffalo’s 51-3 rout of the Raiders in the 1990 season AFC championship game. And what few fans were there in December 2017 witnessed a 13-7 overtime win against Indianapolis in a game played in near-whiteout conditions.
Clark laughs at how a former explosives site became home to a stadium that’s electrified so many.
Though so many of the faces have changed, the one thing that’s remained the same to Clark is what the Bills and the stadium have meant to a Rust Belt community.
“This is an anchor. It’s what brings people together,” he said, noting how many former Buffalonians travel from far and wide to attend games.
“These people spread out to Atlanta and Carolina and wherever, and they’re still Bills fans. And their children are Bills fans,” Clark said. “To know how many families, how many couples have met here. It’s like a Hallmark movie.”
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