I was going to write a long post on this but I got too frustrated to actually write it out nicely so here it is in paragraph form.
I'm a huge Hokie fan, so are you. College football is more than just a game, it's about taking pride in your school and the people from it. When one of them fucks up, it naturally becomes a point of contention because that person in some ways represents you to a large audience. That said, the conversation needs to be focused on making this team and the support for it better. Congrats on pointing out that we all have opinions on Logan and Cody, Heather Dinnich is a hack and the douchebags up north still suck at everything. For as frustrating as this team can be sometimes, I'm easiy four times more livid with the fans. And the fans are why I care so much about this damn sport. Great fans create more great fans but bad fans create more bad fans. I watched dozens of students leave during the second quarter while losing to Duke and hundreds more at halftime and I died a little on the inside.
And with that...IDEAS ON IMPROVING LANE STADIUM?!?! I liked the idea Alabama had of keeping students from certain sections out based on whether they stay but that flies with honey saying. I'd love to be able to tie in the lunchpail mentality into a reward system so students can essentially clock in and clock out but I don't know how we would do it on such a large scale. I'd also love for the reward being priority seating, while a student AND as an alumni though I doubt that last part is reasonable. There is also the problem of no negative incentive for students to start doing this. Pushing students down in the lottery won't help because they started giving away student tickets. Or we could just crank up the volume on the positive incentive. Or do something entirely different.
JUST KEEP THE IDEAS AND ON HOW US FANS CAN IMPROVE FOR THE TEAM AND FOR OURSELVES FLOWING. LET THE POSITIVITY FLOW BECAUSE I KNOW THAT I COULD REALLY GET HOKIE HOKIE HOKIE HIGH OFF THE DRUG THAT IS TECH FOOTBALL
Comments
I recall a forum where someone mentioned that you should be able to use meal plan money at the concessions stands. I'm going one step further: make the concessions part of Dining Services and get some of the amazing food into Lane Stadium.
I do like the ideas to create some sort of rewards system (including scanning tickets when people leave). I'm just not sure there's enough fan backing to force that issue in the Athletic Department.
I completely agree with keeping the positivity flowing. Some of the posts theses last couple of weeks have been keeping me away from the site, but I love it too much to stay away, and its posts like these that bring me back. I believe the measure of a great fan is not how much you support the team when they're winning and its easy, but when they're down and its tough. Thats when true Hokies shine through the doubters and naysayers
In UMD, for student non-season ticket holders, instead of just a standard lottery, you'd have a reward system. Each time the ticket you get was used, it bumps up your percentages. Not using it harms your percentages. better % = higher chances of getting a ticket, and better seats. So if you're not able to go, make damn sure you find someone who is to give it to, or don't get one.
Also:
The sequester put a big ax in having lots of flyovers. Unless the planes are privately owned, its not gonna happen. I've been depressed about it all year...
That's sorta what I figured, so I assume that'll change back next year. Just looking for more bullets.
I agree with the ticket policy - something of this magnitude will create a high demand atmosphere, thus weaning out all/most of the non passionate fans.
Also, a first come first served seating section by year/class would create a similar atmosphere as well and would greatly reduce the "hey you're in my seat" people.
The improved cellphone service is coming. That is what the construction is all about behind the east stands
We're an engineering school. 1) Engineering. 2) School. (Not necessarily in order of importance)
Hokieshibe mentions one potential improvement above: Better cell service. No one should be in the stadium wondering where their signal is. Even better, make a free in-stadium broadcast signal over stadium wifi so you can tune into any radio/television announcer that is being broadcast live.
Another idea regarding replay, one I partly mentioned in another thread: since we are such a tech school, we need to revolutionize the replay experience. We should have our own fleet of permanently mounted 3D cameras around the stadium so that no play can't be accurately called with a replay. Even better, on the in-stadium wifi, show all the camera angles for all the plays so after a hard-to-see play you can choose to broadcast replays on your phone. Even better, give you a tiled view of all the replay angles and let you chose which angle you want to see.
Next, another digital thing, since we are a school, we should make a deal with Amazon/Google Scholar/JSTOR/Elsevier so that we can distribute scholarly articles from technical journals free to stadium visitors (I dunno, put a QR code on the ticket you can scan to get free articles over stadium wifi stored to your phone, with some max of like 10 per QR code per game or something). Engineering. Science. Education. Research.
I work in the VT library. We often hear from alumni wanting remote access to our databases - besides the licensing fees being outrageous, the requirements are really stiff. JStor is piloting a free to read online program - http://about.jstor.org/news/free-read
We have several databases free to alumni - Project Muse, Sage Journals, Sage Knowledge and Sage Research Methods -
http://www.lib.vt.edu/alumniportal/databases/alumni-databases.html
Sorry - it's the reference librarian in me! But this is one of the best sites on the web - can't tell you how much I have learned!
This drives me crazy about JSTOR and others. It's their job to disseminate information! Researchers and students have a hard time having enough money, and the work they publish is never done on their dime.