First the Olympics, Then the Braves, and Now Georgia State Football

"Turner Field, the Braves’ home of the past 20 years, is now the Georgia State football team’s stadium," reports Tim Tucker.

"The dugouts have been removed. The natural-grass baseball field has been turned into an artificial-turf football field. A new grandstand has been constructed in what used to be right field," Tucker adds. High school football games started at the field earlier this month, and Georgia State's first game will be played on August 31.

The stadium formerly known as Turner Field had a previous life as Centennial Olympic Stadium, where Atlanta kicked off the 1996 Summer Olympics with Muhammad Ali lighting the torch in the stadium where Michael Johnson would later run to Olympic glory. That Olympic legacy made it very cheap for the Atlanta Braves to move in after the Olympics concluded, although only 20 years later they angered local critics by eventually departing for suburban Cobb County. Georgia State pitched a $300 million redevelopment in the neighborhood around the stadium, before it had finalized the decision to move it's football program into the stadium.

Additional coverage of the stadium's new, third life, written after a press tour of the new stadium this week, is available from the Associated Press.