First let me say that I respect your years of training and the work you do every weekend. As a pilot you take on great responsibility every time you get behind the controls. So don’t take this as me telling you how to do your job. Consider it more of a suggestion (or even a plea). Whatever you do this weekend, do not take overhead shots of Raymond James Stadium. Tampa is a lovely city. The weather is supposed to be nice Saturday. Use your aerial view to capture shots of the beaches or the Bay. How about a nice overhead of Busch Gardens or Downtown? Anything but a crowd shot. You see, last year this picture was taken at the ACC Championship Game.
Since then it has been used to mock the conference and BC all over the internet. You can’t blame BC. These games were supposed to be battles between Florida powers. How was a private Catholic School from Boston expected to travel on relatively short notice? This year doesn’t look much better. Ticket sales are slow and the locals have resorted to giving the seats away. Most BC fans are resigned to our poor traveling reputation. At this point we only care about winning the game. A victory will do more to change perception than a few thousand more tickets sold ever would. That said, kind Sir, we could still use your help this weekend. Use your powerful zeppelin for good. Show off Tampa. Don’t try to embarrass the ACC.
Sincerely,
A BC fan with a whole section to himself
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8 comments:
Classic.
Let's look at why BC does not travel well.
1) BC is not a state school and only graduates 2500 students per year. Most state schools graduate 5 to 10k.
2) BC alumni are scattered throughout the country. Most state schools have the majority of their alumni pooled within limited geographic areas. This makes it easier to put together bus trips and carpools.
3) Many fans identify with Florida because they live in Florida, even though they never went to the school. There are a lot of fans of the Iowa Hawkeyes that barely graduated from high school. BC does not have very many supporters who are not alumnni.
4) BC is far away from the championship game. You cannot just hop in a car and drive to Tampa from Boston. You have to fly. I checked on flights and it would have cost me $540.00. I cannot justify spending that much for a quick weekend trip.
People are cutting back all over right now so I think a lot of schools will experience lower attendance. It is hard to tell your wife to spend a little less on Christmas gifts when you turn around and drop $1,000 on a football game.
Thanks, Bill. That picture depresses me every time I see it.
Good article on Davis and his local connection!
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/college/article925475.ece
First of all, I love this website.I visit it on a daily basis. The comments are candid, intelligent and accurate. (like most BC alumni). It is very sad that the attendance will be low on Saturday for the ACC Championship in Tampa but it does not mean BC alumni don't love their team. Under Coach Jag, AD Gene DeFillipo and the BC administration, I am confident BC football can continue to excell. Perhaps, future ACC championships can be held somewhere in the Northeast such as Washington DC or Baltimore.
A tradition unlike any other...the ACC Championship.
I don't think the Southern locals of the ACC would take too kindly to our complaints about travel. They'd probably tell us to go back to the Big East.
Their take: it's kind of funny that we're complaining about location from our Boston perspective, as we joined a southern league. You think they'll bend over backwards to accommodate us? I doubt the Big East would voluntarily throw a CG in Storrs or Piscataway if Miami was an option (we'd probably see some domes mixed in), but most major conferences are also fairly regional. As in close to each other. To minimize travel, ideally. With the most travel being east to west and not north to south.
You see north south in the Pac Ten, but that's because they're so far secluded out west. It made sense population-wise.
My take is we should start traveling to let them know we belong just as much as any other school in the ACC. It has nothing to do with being a private school. It has to do with regions. Like Eagleboston said, fans grow up liking particular teams. Hard to find many BC fans in Dixie.
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