wells
All-American
While many of you other buckeye fans were happily watching a seasoned buckeye squad decimate an inferior opponent this past weekend, I myself was sadly 800 miles away from the sights and sounds of the old grey lady along the Olentangy.
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As of Friday I had completed my last day of work at my internship here in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pJacksonville Beach</ST1:place</st1:City>, Fl and conceivabley had no way to pack and drive back in time for the game Saturday morning. <O:p</O:p
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Rather than waste the opportunity of catching a college football game on opening weekend, I managed to acquire some tickets to Urban Meyer's debut in <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pGainesville</ST1:p</st1:City>. Here are my impressions from my trip to the swamp.....<O:p</O:p
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The game was a 6pm kickoff which in <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pFlorida</ST1:p</st1:State> you are quite thankful for otherwise you'd sweat more than a retiree in anticipation of the Golden Carol opening for breakfast. My co-worker and I arrived around 2:30 which by most peoples standards except for maybe his, he was driving after all, was about 2 hours too late to show up for a college football game. As we drove in we traveled down the main street through campus, University, which is strikingly similar to High Street in many ways.<O:p</O:p
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University Avenue had shops, restaurants, bars, the team shop, book store and even a few frats lining its northern side opposite the stadium. The Southern side was mostly filled with tents and tailgaters which starkly contrasted the tailgating policy of late at OSU. Except for the immediate area surrounding the stadium you could potentially set up a tent, grill, and TV anywhere on campus. I even strolled through campus to see tents and whatnot setup in what looked like to be their equivalence of the oval. It also should be noted that the cops here don’t give a shit about what liquid is occupying space in your red solo cup, however if you're an idiot carrying around a beer bottle they will make you pour it out, but its much better than a damn ticket or trip to jail.<O:p</O:p
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In many ways the things were setup in <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pGainesville</ST1:p</st1:City> reminded me of OSU except it would be like having high street, and lane avenue border the shoe, rather than <st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Woody Hayes Dr</st1:address></st1:Street>, and Tuttle. It gave you the sense of a consolidated party, and provided you with an opportunity to see many, many more coeds.
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The overall pregame atmosphere I was very impressed with, every single fan had on orange or blue, there wasn’t any of those off color bullshit t-shirts you see around OSU and other big ten schools. To me at least that was a huge plus. Cars with crazy decor would drive by constantly usually with really drunk fans riding passenger. A dj they had setup next to the book store would play their band music, and throw on various gator cheer to get the fans excited. The one thing they were lacking was many of the corporate amenities that are found on <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pSt. Johns</ST1:p</st1:City> arena lawn. They were no were to be found there was a Pepsi trailer, a dominos, red baron, and some weird energy drink stand setup and that was it. They didn’t have any of the games like what we have (not that I care but if you had kids it could be a big deal), they were mainly there to sell what product they had.<O:p</O:p
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The best pregame activity they had was what their fans referred to as the Gator Walk. It was actually started Saturday for the first time by Urban Meyer, for previous coaches the players would be dropped off by the bus right at their locker room doors. At about 4pm a crowd began to congregate right at the street and sidewalk leading to the main north entrance to the stadium. I wasn’t too sure what was going on until I heard some gators fan, who sounded like he had just ruined his boxers, began talking about it in a rather high pitched and excited manner. At about 4:20 the small crowd had completely lined both sides of the street and the area in front of the stadium was completely filled with gator fans. The crowd started doing their "Orange/Blue" cheer, one side of the street would yell "orAAnge" (they put the southern twang on it), the other side to reply with blue. Essentially the same as our OH-IO cheer, except unlike theirs we had moved beyond color recognition to elementary spelling. At 4:25 the first cops on motorcycles showed up, and began to desperately clear a path for the busses and players to walk through upon arrival. It took a police officer driving his bike through the crowd to clear a path, and then about 5-10 officers to quickly fill in to make sure it stayed that way. Five minutes later, the team bus came around the corner led by 4 more bike cops and pulled up to where the police officers cleared a path, it was at this instant, the crowd from the north end of the street ran up to the yellow divider, and surrounded the busses on all sides. I was about 5 feet in front of the first bus. Urban Meyer was riding in the front seat opposite the driver. The fans at this point went crazy with their cheer "it’s good to be a <ST1:p<st1:State w:st="on">Florida</st1:State></ST1:p Gator," and this was probably the one memory that will stick with me about the swamp, the look on Urban Meyers face upon seeing a crowd of a few thousand surrounding his bus. To best describe the look, it was a smirk but one that conveyed the feeling, "damn this is what game day is like in <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pGainesville</ST1:place</st1:City>" He held that look for a good 2-3 seconds as he surveyed the crowd, then returned to reality and let his players off the bus.<O:p</O:p
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My seats, the swamp, and the game.<O:p</O:p
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At about 5pm at the insistence of my co-worker, I turned down a call from a female to hit up a last minute cookout/party and headed into the stadium. The seats I managed to acquire through one of my clients can be best described as "orgasmatic" 50 yard line, 29 rows up, and we had seat backs (all seats were bleachers, not seatbacks unless you paid extra). The only drawback to these seats was the tub of lard behind us, throwing out the most ridiculous comments i've ever heard. To quote one or two "he cant tackle like that, he needs to twist him," and upon hearing the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Georgia</st1:country-region> score "they only got the 5 turnovers because it was <ST1:p<st1:City w:st="on">Boise</st1:City></ST1:p states fault." There wasn’t anything special about the warm-up routine that I feel I should note, other than before they return to the locker room one kicker and punt returner stays on the field, once the returner catches the ball, the team runs to him, gets in a huddle, breaks down, and then run into the locker room.<O:p</O:p
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At this point the band took the field, and man, they were lame. They spelled out "script <ST1:p<st1:State w:st="on">Florida</st1:State></ST1:p" a first for the band ever (it had always been script gators), but unlike TDBITL, each member in the band just moved to a designated location. I’m sure they spent weeks learning how to do that. After that, they then moved locations to spell "Gators" and then marched to the south end of the field, broke formation and formed a tunnel for the players to run out of. The crowd at this time was busy remembering their colors, the east side would yell orange, and the west side would yell blue. It was comparably as loud as our stadium when the team took ran out of the tunnel lead by a few cheerleaders with flags. Then the band started playing the "gator chomp" and the crowd would do the gator chomp in unison with the music. From there the band played the National Anthem, and had to keep replaying the final few scores of it to allow for a late fly over by the Navy.<O:p</O:p
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As many of you Buckeye fans have been told the swamp is supposed to be the loudest, most hostile environment in college football. While it was <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pWyoming</ST1:p</st1:State> and I didn’t get the best impression. I felt a large part of the noise was helped out by the stadium design. When I took my seats in the swamp my first impression was that I was in the bowl, the stadium rises up sharply on all ends, and since it’s older and in desperate need of renovation, it was mostly all brick and concrete the sound doesn’t have anywhere to go except back on the field. I also felt like the crowd was really packed in there, the stadium never gave me the impression that 90,000 were in attendance. Every seat is a bleacher seat, and given the relative little amount of fat people in <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pFlorida</ST1:p</st1:State>, the space you were given wouldn’t accommodate many people over 225 lbs. Regardless of the seating conditions I was impressed of how they seated the students, virtually all the seating on the visitor side, upper and lower was all students. I can see why teams hate to play there, the students never sit down, or shut up by and far they deserved their Herbie Award. It looked like from my view opposite them that they did a good job at giving the other team shit. I could only imagine what it would be like if similar conditions were at OSU, just think the entirety of the student ticket body on one side, screaming at Lloyd Carr and his turkey neck, <ST1:p<st1:State w:st="on">Michigan</st1:State></ST1:p would never get past the 50 yard line. To me it was the perfect setup for a stadium, that way you didn’t have students around little kids or alumni who were mostly placed on the north, south, and west sides of the stadium. The other thing to note was where they placed the band, the northeast side, in the corner allowing them to play right at the visiting team, and the student section. From the stadium design, to placement of tickets, it’s easy to see why the place is so hostile.<O:p</O:p
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And to wrap up...<O:p</O:p
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The highlights:<O:p</O:p
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1. Coeds: this was the most impressive collection of attractive women I’ve ever seen on a college campus, had it not been for my co-worker and his unwillingness to take part in the pregame parties, and after parties id almost guarantee I would've transferred down there for their second semester.<O:p
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2. Tailgating: A strong presence, probably what ours was like B.H. (before Holbrook). Tents, women, alcohol, food, everywhere, and amazing scene.<O:p
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3. The swamp: Loud students, tons of energy, a great venue to watch a football game
<st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">4. University Avenue</st1:address></st1:Street>: right next to the stadium, the sight of all the tailgating, and even a few frats, it was just too convenient and accessible to be true. The atmosphere was awesome, every fan wanted to be there and have a blast before the game.<O:p
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5. The gator walk: Even though I wouldn’t put it above the trek our players take from the Blackwell to St.Johns to the Shoe it was crazy, and fun to watch. Given it was the first time done, and at a cupcake game the thought of this going down at <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pTennessee</ST1:p</st1:State>would make you think they'll need a tank to get the crowd to move, well unless they have a lot of Chinese fans I failed to see.<O:p</O:p
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<st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pMichigan </ST1:p</st1:State>Worthy:<O:p</O:p
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1. The band: I wasn’t sure whether to laugh and cry when they were on the field. Similar to the Wolverines they looked and sounded much better when they were off the field.<O:p
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2. Orange and blue cheer: "OrAAANge....Blue" it just wasn’t something I could appreciate, unless maybe I was a Purdue fan.<O:p
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3. Stadium Conditions: cramped, needs renovation, and extremely small bathrooms and concourse areas.<O:p></O:p>
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4. Lack of pregame activities: Aside from the gator walk or the tailgating, there was nothing really to do especially if you have someone with you that doesn’t drink. It just was missing something that didn’t give it the same feeling you get in <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:place w:st="on">Columbus</ST1:place></st1:City> on game days, no skull session, no commercial booth, and a lack of street and t-shirt vendors the atmosphere in that regard was lacking. <O:p></O:p>
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5. 4th quarter stretch: Not hang on sloopy, or jump around, but some really weird, lame song that they sing. It just seems out of place with the otherwise extreme intensity the place carries. It'd be like metallica trading in their guitars for pianos and flutes. The crowd embraces arms and sways back and forth and sings...how gay. The gator fans were giving me some weird looks, when I started to laugh initially.<O:p></O:p>
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Finally before I go, I just wish to say, that this is stadium every Buckeye Fan should visit one day. I’ve just begun to tour other stadiums, but i'm confident this will remain as one of the best I’ve been to. Next time I go, I can guarantee one thing; the person that attends the game with me shall..
1) Be willing to go party with the tailgaters and coeds despite what buckeye gear i’m wearing.<O:p></O:p>
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2) Be a buckeye fan that at least has a comparison to draw from.<O:p></O:p>
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3) Drink more beer than they would in <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:place w:st="on">Ohio</ST1:place></st1:State>. The alcohol content in the beer down here is lower than that of <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pOhio</ST1:p</st1:State> so they must be willing to show these Floridians how to drink.
<O:pAlso if anyone would like to help finance my gas on the way back to cbus this Wednesday, check out my shirts, and reach me at [email protected] if you're interested, or check them out on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5237843898&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1
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This is a picture of my friend sporting one.....
http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1906&stc=1&d=1125859043
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As of Friday I had completed my last day of work at my internship here in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pJacksonville Beach</ST1:place</st1:City>, Fl and conceivabley had no way to pack and drive back in time for the game Saturday morning. <O:p</O:p
<O:p
Rather than waste the opportunity of catching a college football game on opening weekend, I managed to acquire some tickets to Urban Meyer's debut in <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pGainesville</ST1:p</st1:City>. Here are my impressions from my trip to the swamp.....<O:p</O:p
<O:p
The game was a 6pm kickoff which in <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pFlorida</ST1:p</st1:State> you are quite thankful for otherwise you'd sweat more than a retiree in anticipation of the Golden Carol opening for breakfast. My co-worker and I arrived around 2:30 which by most peoples standards except for maybe his, he was driving after all, was about 2 hours too late to show up for a college football game. As we drove in we traveled down the main street through campus, University, which is strikingly similar to High Street in many ways.<O:p</O:p
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University Avenue had shops, restaurants, bars, the team shop, book store and even a few frats lining its northern side opposite the stadium. The Southern side was mostly filled with tents and tailgaters which starkly contrasted the tailgating policy of late at OSU. Except for the immediate area surrounding the stadium you could potentially set up a tent, grill, and TV anywhere on campus. I even strolled through campus to see tents and whatnot setup in what looked like to be their equivalence of the oval. It also should be noted that the cops here don’t give a shit about what liquid is occupying space in your red solo cup, however if you're an idiot carrying around a beer bottle they will make you pour it out, but its much better than a damn ticket or trip to jail.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
In many ways the things were setup in <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pGainesville</ST1:p</st1:City> reminded me of OSU except it would be like having high street, and lane avenue border the shoe, rather than <st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Woody Hayes Dr</st1:address></st1:Street>, and Tuttle. It gave you the sense of a consolidated party, and provided you with an opportunity to see many, many more coeds.
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The overall pregame atmosphere I was very impressed with, every single fan had on orange or blue, there wasn’t any of those off color bullshit t-shirts you see around OSU and other big ten schools. To me at least that was a huge plus. Cars with crazy decor would drive by constantly usually with really drunk fans riding passenger. A dj they had setup next to the book store would play their band music, and throw on various gator cheer to get the fans excited. The one thing they were lacking was many of the corporate amenities that are found on <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pSt. Johns</ST1:p</st1:City> arena lawn. They were no were to be found there was a Pepsi trailer, a dominos, red baron, and some weird energy drink stand setup and that was it. They didn’t have any of the games like what we have (not that I care but if you had kids it could be a big deal), they were mainly there to sell what product they had.<O:p</O:p
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The best pregame activity they had was what their fans referred to as the Gator Walk. It was actually started Saturday for the first time by Urban Meyer, for previous coaches the players would be dropped off by the bus right at their locker room doors. At about 4pm a crowd began to congregate right at the street and sidewalk leading to the main north entrance to the stadium. I wasn’t too sure what was going on until I heard some gators fan, who sounded like he had just ruined his boxers, began talking about it in a rather high pitched and excited manner. At about 4:20 the small crowd had completely lined both sides of the street and the area in front of the stadium was completely filled with gator fans. The crowd started doing their "Orange/Blue" cheer, one side of the street would yell "orAAnge" (they put the southern twang on it), the other side to reply with blue. Essentially the same as our OH-IO cheer, except unlike theirs we had moved beyond color recognition to elementary spelling. At 4:25 the first cops on motorcycles showed up, and began to desperately clear a path for the busses and players to walk through upon arrival. It took a police officer driving his bike through the crowd to clear a path, and then about 5-10 officers to quickly fill in to make sure it stayed that way. Five minutes later, the team bus came around the corner led by 4 more bike cops and pulled up to where the police officers cleared a path, it was at this instant, the crowd from the north end of the street ran up to the yellow divider, and surrounded the busses on all sides. I was about 5 feet in front of the first bus. Urban Meyer was riding in the front seat opposite the driver. The fans at this point went crazy with their cheer "it’s good to be a <ST1:p<st1:State w:st="on">Florida</st1:State></ST1:p Gator," and this was probably the one memory that will stick with me about the swamp, the look on Urban Meyers face upon seeing a crowd of a few thousand surrounding his bus. To best describe the look, it was a smirk but one that conveyed the feeling, "damn this is what game day is like in <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pGainesville</ST1:place</st1:City>" He held that look for a good 2-3 seconds as he surveyed the crowd, then returned to reality and let his players off the bus.<O:p</O:p
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My seats, the swamp, and the game.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
At about 5pm at the insistence of my co-worker, I turned down a call from a female to hit up a last minute cookout/party and headed into the stadium. The seats I managed to acquire through one of my clients can be best described as "orgasmatic" 50 yard line, 29 rows up, and we had seat backs (all seats were bleachers, not seatbacks unless you paid extra). The only drawback to these seats was the tub of lard behind us, throwing out the most ridiculous comments i've ever heard. To quote one or two "he cant tackle like that, he needs to twist him," and upon hearing the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Georgia</st1:country-region> score "they only got the 5 turnovers because it was <ST1:p<st1:City w:st="on">Boise</st1:City></ST1:p states fault." There wasn’t anything special about the warm-up routine that I feel I should note, other than before they return to the locker room one kicker and punt returner stays on the field, once the returner catches the ball, the team runs to him, gets in a huddle, breaks down, and then run into the locker room.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
At this point the band took the field, and man, they were lame. They spelled out "script <ST1:p<st1:State w:st="on">Florida</st1:State></ST1:p" a first for the band ever (it had always been script gators), but unlike TDBITL, each member in the band just moved to a designated location. I’m sure they spent weeks learning how to do that. After that, they then moved locations to spell "Gators" and then marched to the south end of the field, broke formation and formed a tunnel for the players to run out of. The crowd at this time was busy remembering their colors, the east side would yell orange, and the west side would yell blue. It was comparably as loud as our stadium when the team took ran out of the tunnel lead by a few cheerleaders with flags. Then the band started playing the "gator chomp" and the crowd would do the gator chomp in unison with the music. From there the band played the National Anthem, and had to keep replaying the final few scores of it to allow for a late fly over by the Navy.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
As many of you Buckeye fans have been told the swamp is supposed to be the loudest, most hostile environment in college football. While it was <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pWyoming</ST1:p</st1:State> and I didn’t get the best impression. I felt a large part of the noise was helped out by the stadium design. When I took my seats in the swamp my first impression was that I was in the bowl, the stadium rises up sharply on all ends, and since it’s older and in desperate need of renovation, it was mostly all brick and concrete the sound doesn’t have anywhere to go except back on the field. I also felt like the crowd was really packed in there, the stadium never gave me the impression that 90,000 were in attendance. Every seat is a bleacher seat, and given the relative little amount of fat people in <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pFlorida</ST1:p</st1:State>, the space you were given wouldn’t accommodate many people over 225 lbs. Regardless of the seating conditions I was impressed of how they seated the students, virtually all the seating on the visitor side, upper and lower was all students. I can see why teams hate to play there, the students never sit down, or shut up by and far they deserved their Herbie Award. It looked like from my view opposite them that they did a good job at giving the other team shit. I could only imagine what it would be like if similar conditions were at OSU, just think the entirety of the student ticket body on one side, screaming at Lloyd Carr and his turkey neck, <ST1:p<st1:State w:st="on">Michigan</st1:State></ST1:p would never get past the 50 yard line. To me it was the perfect setup for a stadium, that way you didn’t have students around little kids or alumni who were mostly placed on the north, south, and west sides of the stadium. The other thing to note was where they placed the band, the northeast side, in the corner allowing them to play right at the visiting team, and the student section. From the stadium design, to placement of tickets, it’s easy to see why the place is so hostile.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
And to wrap up...<O:p</O:p
<O:p
The highlights:<O:p</O:p
<O:p
1. Coeds: this was the most impressive collection of attractive women I’ve ever seen on a college campus, had it not been for my co-worker and his unwillingness to take part in the pregame parties, and after parties id almost guarantee I would've transferred down there for their second semester.<O:p
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2. Tailgating: A strong presence, probably what ours was like B.H. (before Holbrook). Tents, women, alcohol, food, everywhere, and amazing scene.<O:p
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3. The swamp: Loud students, tons of energy, a great venue to watch a football game
<st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">4. University Avenue</st1:address></st1:Street>: right next to the stadium, the sight of all the tailgating, and even a few frats, it was just too convenient and accessible to be true. The atmosphere was awesome, every fan wanted to be there and have a blast before the game.<O:p
<O:p
5. The gator walk: Even though I wouldn’t put it above the trek our players take from the Blackwell to St.Johns to the Shoe it was crazy, and fun to watch. Given it was the first time done, and at a cupcake game the thought of this going down at <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pTennessee</ST1:p</st1:State>would make you think they'll need a tank to get the crowd to move, well unless they have a lot of Chinese fans I failed to see.<O:p</O:p
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<st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pMichigan </ST1:p</st1:State>Worthy:<O:p</O:p
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1. The band: I wasn’t sure whether to laugh and cry when they were on the field. Similar to the Wolverines they looked and sounded much better when they were off the field.<O:p
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2. Orange and blue cheer: "OrAAANge....Blue" it just wasn’t something I could appreciate, unless maybe I was a Purdue fan.<O:p
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3. Stadium Conditions: cramped, needs renovation, and extremely small bathrooms and concourse areas.<O:p></O:p>
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4. Lack of pregame activities: Aside from the gator walk or the tailgating, there was nothing really to do especially if you have someone with you that doesn’t drink. It just was missing something that didn’t give it the same feeling you get in <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:place w:st="on">Columbus</ST1:place></st1:City> on game days, no skull session, no commercial booth, and a lack of street and t-shirt vendors the atmosphere in that regard was lacking. <O:p></O:p>
<O:p
5. 4th quarter stretch: Not hang on sloopy, or jump around, but some really weird, lame song that they sing. It just seems out of place with the otherwise extreme intensity the place carries. It'd be like metallica trading in their guitars for pianos and flutes. The crowd embraces arms and sways back and forth and sings...how gay. The gator fans were giving me some weird looks, when I started to laugh initially.<O:p></O:p>
<O:p
Finally before I go, I just wish to say, that this is stadium every Buckeye Fan should visit one day. I’ve just begun to tour other stadiums, but i'm confident this will remain as one of the best I’ve been to. Next time I go, I can guarantee one thing; the person that attends the game with me shall..
1) Be willing to go party with the tailgaters and coeds despite what buckeye gear i’m wearing.<O:p></O:p>
<O:p
2) Be a buckeye fan that at least has a comparison to draw from.<O:p></O:p>
<O:p
3) Drink more beer than they would in <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:place w:st="on">Ohio</ST1:place></st1:State>. The alcohol content in the beer down here is lower than that of <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1:pOhio</ST1:p</st1:State> so they must be willing to show these Floridians how to drink.
<O:pAlso if anyone would like to help finance my gas on the way back to cbus this Wednesday, check out my shirts, and reach me at [email protected] if you're interested, or check them out on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5237843898&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1
<O:p
This is a picture of my friend sporting one.....
http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1906&stc=1&d=1125859043
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