Patriots Trivia, Volume 4: owners and venues
Onward and upward with more Pats trivia; this edition will focus on owners and venues.
1. Name all of the owners in the history of the Patriots’ franchise.
2. The Patriots had the worst record under which owner?
3. The Pats have most regular season wins under which owner?
4. Name the four places the Patriots have used for training camp.
5. Which one did the Pats leave, and then return to eight years later?
6. Where was their first training camp?
7. Which site did they use for training camp the longest?
8. How many places have the Patriots used for home games that are within the city limits of Boston?
9. How many stadiums have the Pats used for home games that are not in Boston?
10. Where did the Patriots play their first pre-season home game?
11. Where did the Patriots play their first regular season home game?
12. What was the original name of Gillette Stadium?
13. Why is it sometimes referred to as “The Razor”?
14. Match the owner to the college he attended for his undergraduate studies:
Yale
Washington
Columbia
Boston College
15. Match the owner to the company he was involved with:
D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles
Metropolitan Petroleum Company
Rand-Whitney Group
Remington Products
16. Match the owner to his previous primary job description:
Advertising executive
Investor
Publicist
Salesperson
17. Name the six places where the Patriots have played home games.
18. Rank them in order of the number of home games played there by the Pats.
Spoiler alert: don’t scroll down if you don’t want to see the answers.
1. The Patriots have had four owners: Billy Sullivan, Victor Kiam, James Orthwein and Robert Kraft.
2. The Pats owner with the worst record was surprisingly not Victor ‘Patriot Missile’ Kiam, but James Orthwein. Orthwein’s Pats went 7-25 (.219) while Kiam’s record was 21-43 (.328); neither one ever made it to the playoffs.
3. Billy Sullivan with 193 is still ahead of Robert Kraft (180) for regular season wins, but if you include playoff victories the two are tied with 197. In 28 seasons Sullivan was 193-209-9 in the regular season and 4-6 in the playoffs for a total of 197-208-9 (.487). Kraft’s record over his 17 years as owner is 180-92 plus 17-9 in the playoffs for a total of 197-101, a .661 winning percentage.
4. The four training camps are UMass Amherst, Phillips Academy in Andover, Bryant College in Smithfield, and Gillette Stadium grounds in Foxboro.
5. & 6. UMass was the site of the first camp, and also the place they left and later returned to.
7. The Pats have not only had the most training camps at Bryant, they actually have had more there than at the three other sites combined.
1960-61, 1969-75: UMass (9 years)
1962-1968: Phillips Academy (7 years)
1976-2002: Bryant College (27 years)
2003-2010: Gillette Stadium (8 years)
8. Four: Boston University’s Nickerson Field, Fenway Park, Boston College’s Alumni Stadium and Harvard Stadium. This one is a bit of a trick question because although the campus of Harvard is in Cambridge, the stadium is in Boston. Similary BC has a mailing address of Chestnut Hill and is sometimes thought of being in Newton, but the field is just barely within the city limits.
9. Three: the two stadiums in Foxboro, and one game at Legion Field in Birmingham Alabama due to scheduling conflicts with the Red Sox at Fenway.
10. & 11. The first pre-season home game was at Harvard stadium, and the first regular season home game was at Nickerson Field.
12. The original name for the new stadium in Foxboro was CMGI Field, but CMGI relinquished the rights before the stadium opened due to financial difficulties.
13. Razors are Gillette’s major products. Hopefully everybody got this one correct and no further explanation is needed.
14. Yale – Victor Kiam
Washington University in St. Louis – James Orthwein
Columbia – Robert Kraft
Boston College – Billy Sullivan
15. D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles – Orthwein
Metropolitan Petroleum Company – Sullivan
Rand-Whitney Group – Kraft
Remington Products – Kiam
16. Advertising executive – Orthwein
Investor – Kraft
Publicist – Sullivan
Salesperson – Kiam
17. The Patriots have played home games at BU’s Nickerson Field, Fenway Park, BC’s Alumni Stadium, Harvard Stadium, Legion Field in Birmingham, Schaefer/Sullivan/Foxboro Stadium and at Gillette Stadium.
18.
242 – Schaefer (86 from 1971-82)/Sullivan (56 from 1983-89)/Foxboro (100 from 1990-2001) Stadium
81 – Gillette Stadium (2002-2010)
40 – Fenway Park (1963-68)
21 – Nickerson Field (1960-62)
8 – Alumni Stadium (1967, 1969)
7 – Harvard Stadium (1970)
1 – Legion Field, Birmingham (1968)
In 1967 the Pats played six games at Fenway and one at BC; in 1968 they played six at Fenway and one in Birmingham.
