Remembering RFK Stadium

DC is demolishing which opened in 1961 and held its last game in 2017. I shared these memories with Events DC’s Farewell RFK Campaign.

My first game at RFK was watching Olympic Football on July 24, 1996, in a group stage match between the United States and Portugal.

My last game at RFK was the final one played in the stadium, DC United vs. New York Red Bulls on October 22, 2017.

I was three weeks shy of my sixth birthday and visiting DC with my parents and two older brothers when I entered RFK for the first time. I don’t remember much, but photos show me sporting an Atlanta Olympics hat and t-shirt, my middle brother with a US Soccer hat and t-shirt, and my oldest brother with a Portugal flag and Benfica jersey. My dad is an immigrant from Portugal and our soccer coach, so I assume that he planned the trip around the match.

Less than a week after my 18th birthday I moved from Massachusetts to DC to attend American University. I have lived in DC for 11 of the 15 years since. At six, I didn’t know the mark that RFK would have on my late teens and 20s. I took full advantage of DC United college night tickets—as low as $10! —and in my second year I went with friends to watch the 2010 World Cup Qualifier between USA and Costa Rica. It was a frigid game and stadium venders were selling hot chocolates with vodka shots. After the US tied in the closing seconds to deny Costa Rica a bid to the World Cup, we were celebrating underneath the American Outlaw’s giant flag. Costa Rican fans in the upper decks went from jubilant to despondent as USA fans ignited red smoke bombs.

The next year my college roommate and I became the inaugural Screaming Eagles Fans of the Match when we belted out SE songs, waved beer-coated, moldy flags and urged DCU on to victory. The Supporters Section was a near lawless place. Supporters tossed their Tecates in the air whenever DC scored, leaving you soaked in beer as you jumped and sang. It rocked and bounced. Shirtless capos stood on top of chairs in the chaos and urged fans to keep singing as drums sounded, “Va-mos, Va-mos, UNITED, Esta Noche Tenemos Que Ganar!” Or less politely, “If I had the head of an Eagle, If I had the A** of a Crow, I’d Fly Over New York Tomorrow, And S*** On Those B******* Below. S*** On S*** On S**** On Those B******* Below”.

Major League Soccer is far more accessible and popular today than even just 10 years ago. Back when RFK reigned, I convinced friends to join me for their first MLS games and almost all left saying that it had the best fan experience of any DC team. One Lot 8 tailgate with the Screaming Eagles and Barra Brava, marching to the stadium, drumming in the underpass, bouncing in the stands, and rocking the concourse made many friends and family believers. Baptized in Tecate.

On-field, DCU hasn’t achieved much in the years since I’ve moved to DC, but I will never forget walking from my old neighborhood in Near Northeast, popping into a liquor store on Benning Road with plastic separating you from the attendant, purchasing a to-go beer, and heading through Kingman Park to Lot 8. I won’t forget that post-bottomless brunch when my boyfriend and I somehow walked into the stadium without tickets and then shortly thereafter we were in the Supporter’s Section with outside beers in our hands. Lawless.

I’ll remember watching the explosive 4-3 win when USA defeated Germany in a friendly to mark the Centennial of the US Soccer Federation. Before the game a fan from West Virgina shared his homemade moonshine with me in Lot 8. I’ll remember huddling with my soccer team in an open “luxury” box during a torrential downpour. No one had stopped us from finding shelter in the upper levels.

RFK was an old, dilapidated stadium when I moved to DC in 2008. It was a crummy, crumbling stadium. But it was also one of the most wild and fun places to watch soccer in the United States. Walking past RFK recently, my eyes glistened because just as I can never be in my 20s again, I’ll also never recapture the magic of that stadium.