The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Foxborough’s NFL magic
Patriots winning ways boost small town’s legacy.
FOXBOROUGH, MASS. — In the NFL community, one word might be feared more than any other: Foxborough.
It is where the rosy Super Bowl dreams of visiting teams die a frosty death each January. It is where the New England Patriots, before a raucous southeastern Massachusetts home crowd, rarely lose a playoff game (this century’s postseason record there is 20-3).
It is where NFL road teams are not only defeated, but rejected under peculiar circumstances. See: Deflategate, Tom Brady and the tuck rule.
How did out-of-the way, small-town Foxborough, of all places, come to be synonymous with heartache in NFL cities from coast to coast while blossoming into a shrine to comprehensive Patriots glory?
The Patriots, after all, came to Foxborough in 1971 only because no one else wanted them. It helped that the stadium land, 30 miles south of Boston, was free.
Foxborough (population: 17,000) remains firmly rooted in its pre-Patriots past, with dairy cows visible from the top of Gillette Stadium. More than that, Foxborough is the oddest place to bear witness to recurring NFL history, simply because no one here can agree on how to spell the town’s name.
Since 1778, by decree, in all authorized documents and on all town buildings, it has been spelled Foxborough. But almost immediately after that became official, many institutions in the town — banks, businesses, even the local newspaper — decided it was easier to go by Foxboro. In a quintessential example of New England persistence, the argument has endured for centuries: There are now signs with both spellings throughout the village.
However the name is spelled, Foxborough residents know their little municipality is renowned far and wide.
“I’ve done training across the country,” Tom Buckley, the town’s deputy fire chief, said. “When I’m asked where I live, I never mention the Patriots. I just say Foxborough. And instantly, everyone starts talking to me about the Patriots and how they always win there.
“Does that happen with any other NFL team? I mean, I don’t know where the Miami Dolphins play, even though I know it’s not Miami.”
The Patriots’ earliest days in Foxborough were as undistinguished as their first 11 years as the vagabond Boston Patriots of the American Football League. Beginning in 1960, those unheralded Patriots practiced on grassless high school fields and played games at Boston University, Harvard University, Boston College and Fenway Park. With the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, the Patriots needed a sizable stadium as a permanent home, and after talks with Boston city leaders repeatedly broke down, Billy Sullivan, the team’s owner, welcomed an offer from Bay State Raceway, which donated land next to its facility for a 60,000-seat stadium.
The Patriots won their first game at the stadium in 1971, although thousands of ticket holders never saw a single play because they were stuck for the entirety of the game in gridlock traffic that crammed Route 1, the only access road to the stadium.
Soon, the Sullivan family lost control of the team, and the stadium was renamed Foxboro Stadium — not Foxborough — and by 1994, businessman Robert Kraft had bought the team. Kraft knew he needed a modern stadium, and in 1998 seriously flirted with taking the Patriots to Hartford, Connecticut.
Eventually, a deal was struck to build what is now Gillette Stadium, next to the site of the old stadium. The Patriots won their first Super Bowl in an upset months before Gillette Stadium opened in 2002. The last game at Foxboro Stadium was a controversial, come-from-behind, overtime playoff victory known as the Tuck Rule Game, in which an apparent New England fumble became an incomplete pass and saved the day for the Patriots. The home Foxborough magic was born.
“Now you hear it all the time: This is Foxborough; the Patriots don’t lose here,” said Waylon Krueger, who moved from Buffalo, New York, three years ago. “It’s a given. Look, I’m a Bills fan. I wish we had that.”
Hosting the Patriots has also been enormously helpful for the town’s municipal budget, even though the stadium site is just a sliver of Foxborough along commercially dense Route 1.
In the last 10 to 15 years, the town’s demographic makeup has been altered. Foxborough has had an influx of homebuyers with corporate jobs who commute to Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, which is a little more than 20 miles to the south. Larger homes have sprouted on tree-lined streets, some of them aimed at housing millionaire football players employed nearby.
More than half the Patriots’ roster lives in Foxborough, and many other players live in surrounding towns.
“I’m impressed with the intensity of the fan support in Foxborough; it’s almost like a college football town,” said center David Andrews, a University of Georgia product who lives in town. “And people make us feel welcome. They invite us to their homes for the holidays.”
‘Now you hear it all the time: This is Foxborough; the Patriots don’t lose here’ Waylon Krueger Foxborough resident and Buffalo Bills fan