Atwood Stadium was built in 1929 as a baseball and football facility. Atwood hosted several pre-season contests for both the Detroit Tigers and the Detroit Lions in its early days. It was the home of Flint Gems, Flint Indians and Flint Arrows minor-league baseball teams. Atwood also housed several minor-league football teams, including the Flint Blue Devils, Flint Wildcats, Flint Sabres, Flint Falcons, Genesee County Patriots, and Michigan Admirals, and prior to their relocation to Fenton MI the Flint Rampage played their home games at Atwood. The Flint Northern Vikings and Flint Southwestern Knights play their home games at Atwood, as did the Flint Central Indians, prior to the schools closure in 2009. A record crowd of 20,600 showed up for the 1950 Flint Central-Flint Northern thanksgiving day game. Following the 1968 Turkey Day game dubbed the 'Mud Bowl' the city installed artificial turf, making it a football only facility. Since 2010, it hast hosted the season-opener between neighborhood rivals Flint Northwestern and Flint Beecher, lead by former NFL coaches, Andre Rison and Courtney Hawkins, respectively. Each year, they alternate as the home team.