World’s Largest Bronze Falcon: Bowling Green, Ohio’s Fighting Falcon Statue
We knew the World’s Largest Bronze Falcon was standing outside a college arena in Bowling Green, Ohio. That was the entire pitch. We stopped.
What Is the World’s Largest Bronze Falcon?
The World’s Largest Bronze Falcon stands outside the Stroh Center on the campus of Bowling Green State University, frozen mid-dive with its wings pulled back like it just spotted something.
According to sculptor Jon Hair’s own site, the Fighting Falcon has a 24-foot wingspan and is made of bronze and granite. BGSU describes the statue as 23 feet and weighing roughly two tons, or around 4,000 pounds. Hair describes the theme of the sculpture simply as “Strength & Speed.”
BGSU calls it the largest falcon statue in the world.
The Story Behind the Falcon
The falcon exists because of a $100,000 gift from Irwin Belk, a North Carolina philanthropist and former department-store executive. Belk commissioned the sculpture for BGSU while plans for the new Stroh Center were still underway.
Belk wasn’t a one-statue guy, either. According to BGSU, he’d commissioned about 50 statues for colleges and universities across the country. Apparently regular-sized school mascots just weren’t his thing.
The sculptor was Jon Hair of North Carolina. The falcon was cast in Sacramento, California, and BGSU Athletics actually ran a dedicated blog letting fans track its cross-country trip to Ohio by flatbed truck — a real “follow the falcon” campaign, though the blog itself has since gone offline.
It made its final stop at BGSU on November 16, 2010, coming to rest outside the still-under-construction Stroh Center.
Falcon Spirit Plaza was officially dedicated on June 9, 2011, with sculptor Jon Hair and major contributors Irwin Belk and John Bureau in attendance. The “Stroh Center Era” unofficially began that August 13, when a concert packed the building, ahead of the arena’s formal dedication on September 9.
Why a Falcon, Specifically?
BGSU wasn’t always home to the Falcons. Before 1927, the school’s teams were known as the Normals or Teachers.
According to the history engraved right there at Falcon Spirit Plaza, Ivan Lake, a 1923 BGSU graduate who was managing editor and sports editor of Bowling Green’s Sentinel-Tribune, suggested the Falcons nickname. His reasoning was pretty good: falcons were powerful for their size and known to attack birds two or three times larger than themselves.
Nearly a century later, that nickname has produced Freddie and Frieda Falcon, a bronze falcon with a 24-foot wingspan outside the Stroh Center, and one very large answer to the question of why there’s a giant bird sitting on our map.
📍 At a Glance: World’s Largest Bronze Falcon
Location: Falcon Spirit Plaza, outside the Stroh Center
Address: 1535 E. Wooster St., Bowling Green, OH 43403
Big-Rig Friendly: Yes. BGSU allows RVs used for transportation in Lots 13 and 20, and bus parking is designated in Lot 13. No overnight RV parking.
Website: BGSU Falcons
Finding the Falcon at BGSU
The falcon sits outside the Stroh Center at Falcon Spirit Plaza. We weren’t there to tour BGSU. We were there because somebody put a two-ton bronze falcon on our map.
Of course, I couldn’t just stand under it and take a normal picture. Zach kept taking pictures while I got progressively more ridiculous.
If you’re chasing more World’s Largest stops, this one fits right into our growing collection of World’s Largest roadside attractions. And if you’re already wandering through Ohio, we’ve got more Ohio stops too.