While I'm not in any way trying to compare Big Ten to SEC (because I've attended both), I will say that Penn State football is unlike many other teams. PSU fans are into their bowl games (though, not for the next couple of years) and everything that goes along with being a major team. To assume that someone who went to Penn State, or any other major school in the Big Ten, has no idea what football is all about on the grand scale is a bit presumptuous. You should see the looks my Alumni Association gets from others of another SEC school when we cheer on our team every weekend. They almost can't believe our passion.

My remarks were aimed at ASTalumna06 who has not been able to easily grasp the student ticket/block seating arrangement at Alabama, how difficult tickets are to acquire and what lengths students have gone to over the years to sit by blocks. Penn State has a great tradition (though most Bama fans hate PSU almost as much as they hate Notre Dame) and I'm sure their fans are very dedicated. I just doubt the student ticket/seating situation is on the level of ours....

Southern vs. Northern Football
 

Southern vs. Northern Football :cool:

Stadium Size:
NORTH: College football stadiums hold 20,000 people.
SOUTH: High school football stadiums hold 20,000 people.

Fathers:
NORTH: Expect their daughters to understand Sylvia Plath.
SOUTH: Expect their daughters to understand pass interference.

Campus Decor:
NORTH: Statues of founding fathers.
SOUTH: Statues of Heisman trophy winners.

Homecoming Queen:
NORTH: Also a physics major.
SOUTH: Also Miss America.

Cheerleaders:
NORTH: If you are coordinated, you make the varsity squad.
SOUTH: You begin cheer camp at age two, complete with ballet, dance, & gymnastic training.

Heroes:
NORTH: Rudy Guiliani
SOUTH: Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant

Getting Tickets:
NORTH: 5 days before the game you walk into the ticket office on campus and purchase tickets.
SOUTH: 5 months before the game you walk into the ticket office on campus and put name on waiting list for tickets.

Friday Classes After a Thursday Night Game:
NORTH: Students and teachers not sure they're going to the game, because they have classes on Friday.
SOUTH: Teachers cancel Friday classes because they don't want to see the few hung over students that might actually make it to class.

Parking:
NORTH: An hour before game time, the University opens the campus for game parking.
SOUTH: RVs sporting their school flags begin arriving on Wednesday for the weekend festivities. The really faithful arrive on Tuesday.

Game Day:
NORTH: A few students party in the dorm and watch ESPN on TV.
SOUTH: Every student wakes up, has a beer for breakfast, and rushes over to where ESPN is broadcasting "Game Day Live" to get on camera and wave to the idiots up north who wonder why "Game Day Live" is never broadcast from their campus.

Tailgating:
NORTH: Raw meat on a grill, beer with lime in it, listening to local radio station with truck tailgate down.
SOUTH: 30-foot custom pig-shaped smoker fires up at dawn. Cooking accompanied by live performance by "Dave Matthews' Band," who come over during breaks and ask for a hit off bottle of bourbon.

Getting to the Stadium:
NORTH: You ask, "Where's the stadium?" When you find it, you walk right in.
SOUTH: When you're near it, you'll hear it. On game day, it becomes the state's third largest city.

Concessions:
NORTH: Drinks served in a paper cup, filled to the top with soda.
SOUTH: Drinks served in a plastic cup, with the home team's mascot on it, filled less than half way with soda, to ensure enough room for bourbon.

When National Anthem is Played:
NORTH: Stands are less than half full, and less than half of them stand up.
SOUTH: 100,000 fans, all standing, sing along in perfect four-part harmony.

The Smell in the Air After the First Score:
NORTH: Nothing changes.
SOUTH: Fireworks, with a touch of bourbon.

Commentary (Male):
NORTH: "Nice play."
SOUTH: "Dammit, you slow sumbitch - tackle him and break his legs."

Commentary (Female):
NORTH: "My, this certainly is a violent sport."
SOUTH: "Dammit, you slow sumbitch - tackle him and break his legs."

Announcers:
NORTH: Neutral and paid.
SOUTH: Announcer harmonizes with the crowd in the fight song, with a tear in his eye because he is so proud of his team.

After the Game:
NORTH: The stadium is empty way before the game ends.
SOUTH: Another rack of ribs goes on the smoker. While somebody goes to the nearest liquor store for more bourbon, planning begins for next week's game.

There's an old joke that may help to explain how intense it is here.

A man and his family are at the Alabama-Auburn game waiting for it to start. An elderly lady comes along and sits next to them by herself. He figures her husband is getting drinks, food, etc and will be along shortly. Time passes and no one comes to sit by her. The seat remains empty. The game goes on and she cheers for Bama and they all high five etc as Alabama continues to play well. Eventually, he just has to find out why no one is with her and there is an out of the norm empty seat. So he asks if she's by herself. She says, yes, my husband has passed away so I'm by myself. He asks her if there was no friend or relative who would have liked the ticket since they are so hard to come by. She said oh yes, sure, but they are all at his funeral.

I asked a simple question... if the students don't bring their fraternity/sorority flags, badges, shirts, skirts, pom poms, and megaphones with their letters plastered all over them, how would anyone be able to enforce the "no organizations may sit together" policy?

That's it.

If you've explained that already, then please point it out to me.

Are you saying that because it's so difficult to get tickets, that if the blocks were eliminated, no fraternity/sorority members would have tickets to begin with? That would make sense, because then my question wouldn't even apply.

But if that's not it, as I see it, people could save seats but claim that they were just saving them for their friends.

They would no longer have the guaranteed block/area and the security people would keep then from doing so. If they all come together at the same time and sit together, that would be OK. It's the saving/marking/roping off of blocks/areas of seats that would be banned. Tickets are sold before the season starts and all all sold out before the first game. So tickets could not be withheld as the student already has them. Though I suppose they could program the scanners to not allow anyone with a student ticket in the game but that would apply to all students not jsut ones belonging to certain organizations.

Ok, this makes sense. Thank you! :)

Oh, no. I'm aware of who your remarks were aimed at. I'm not trying to argue and I most certainly don't always agree with ASTalumna06 about things but, I have to agree with her on this one. Also, I think that most of the "Southern" traditions that TStevens posted could actually be used for both North and South. Up until the whole scandal, I would say that Joe Paterno was to Northern football what Bear Bryant is to Southern football. Also, Penn State seats way more than 20,000 students (something like over 100,000). I hate Ohio State with all my might but, they are pretty serious about their football too. I mean Ohio State and Michigan have their "polar plunge" the night before their rival game. PSU always went against Michigan State for the Land Grant trophy.

I'm at a major SEC school that is known for its love of (and ranking in) football but, I can honestly say that Penn State rivals them for fan support.

I used to live very close to Northwestern's stadium, and virtually every home game they play has more away fans than home fans, just because every Big 10 school has a large contingent of Chicago alumni. But let me tell you, OSU fans are really special in their level of obnoxiousness. I don't know what it is about them, but they manage to be louder, drunker, incapable of understanding how the purple line works, and generally annoying to a degree that no other group of fans seems to manage.

This has nothing to do with anything else in this thread, I'm just whining.

You know a thread has succeeded when it has turned into a northern vs southern football war.

^^^Jinx! Buy me a coke.

Checking this on various web sites I find that:

1) Beaver Stadium seats 106,572

2) Fall 2013 enrollment on the University Park campus is 46,184.

I really have a hard time with the concepts that:

a) The stadium would be reserved for only students

b) That enough other students could be found to get the attendance of students only to over 100,000

Perhaps you misspoke?

This was funny the first time I read it.....in 1999.

You know the only topic that gets debated as heatedly on GC as race is north vs south.

That was funny, even for "who the hell cares about friggin football anyway" me. Being a Midwestern girl, I think the Midwest falls in between. My high school football stadium was remarkably similar in size and structure as where Northwestern plays (big for a high school TEENSY for a Big 10 football stadium), tailgating is huge at Iowa and Iowa State and I think most of the large schools in the Midwest. On game day, yes, Iowa City becomes one of the biggest cities in Iowa, more than doubling its Tuesday population. But other than a year in contention, the tailgating is the thing, not nearly as much the game. My junior and senior year I didn't even buy season tickets (which had to be purchased in the spring or you had no chance of getting them and there's no such thing as block seats so you had to go as a group with all of your sisters if you wanted seats together). If the weather was decent I'd go to the tailgate and then go back to the house and watch the game on TV, just so I'd know what everyone was talking about. Now true, I was an anomaly, but my method wouldn't have been seen as completely bizarre.

For the purposes of football, Pennsylvania is not in the North as defined by TSteven's post. Neither is Ohio. This starts in junior high and never stops.

Amen!

I would say that Michigan football falls into almost every single one of those "south" categories...except forget getting tickets 5 months ahead. You have to be on the waiting list for 5 years, have a degree from Michigan, and donate money. All of those things get you "points" toward qualifying for tickets.

*ducks in thread*

Ohio lives and breathes football. And we do it in ALL variations of weather.! We start them in elementary school! (Plus it's no accident we have the Pro Football Hall of Fame ;) )

And appropriate to this thread, Alabama's Head Coach played football with my Dad...in Ohio!

*ducks out of thread*

Don't talk to me about tickets. Unless you are a member of the President's Club at Ohio State (something like $5000 per year), you can't get season tickets no matter when you apply for them. Even with 105,000+ seats, a ticket in the 'shoe is a coveted item at nearly $70 per ticket.

Lifetime Members (alumnae who have paid something like $1500) are entered into a lottery for 2 tickets to only 1 game. I'm a Lifetime Member and several times was closed out of the lottery completely. For the past 5 years, while I was awarded tickets, I received crappy non-conference games.

To apply for the Lottery, you must first get an invitation and send your money in by May 1. You don't know until mid-Summer if or which game you have tickets. My dad, aunt and I always are in the lottery with hopes we get 3 different games.

:)

I didn't go to Penn State, but I have attended a few games, and I can attest that all of the seats that aren't taken up by students are filled by alumni and other interested parties.

When I first moved to PA, a lot of the people I met were PSU alumni and they were RELENTLESS in when it came to PSU football and making sure they got tickets because "I gotta go back for football games!!!1!!!" Never mind that it's a 4 hour or so drive from Philly. Not coming from a big football school, I couldn't figure out WHY you would want to drive 8 hours every weekend for a college football game. I swore that PSU must implant each freshman with a homing chip which is activated to bring them all back to Happy Valley each football season after graduation.

Then I went to a game myself and.. whoa. The giant RVs... the massive tailgating area.. the PSU swag everywhere.. the traffic to get into the stadium.. I'd never seen anything like it. And it was FUN! Made me wish I'd gone there, in fact! :D

:rolleyes:

I can't believe we're still having a pissing contest in this thread about football stadiums, tickets, and attendance.

Yep.

Oprah's young Black women call this a dumb thread.

Well, so does this middle aged white woman....and I love football!

I'd like to know, does my alma mater qualify as "North" or "South"?


* The football team went undefeated my senior year, less than a quarter of the campus knew according to a survey from the school newspaper
* My freshman year for one game, they gave away floppy diskettes to each person attending the football game.
* The football team didn't play on campus at all for my Junior year because they were rebuilding the stadium as part of moving the stadiums and fields around for space for a new Dorm.

I thought I would post today's article from hottytoddy.com both here and on the Ole Miss greekchat page since it's been discussed in both places:
http://hottytoddy.com/2013/10/30/gre...lack-or-white/

I think it may be in a 3rd category all by itself...

I think your alma mater qualifies as "confused". I like the idea of floppy diskettes as a handout, though. What was on them?

CMU????

I know there was one year, probably in the early-to-mid eighties the CMU team went undefeated AND had a 4.0 GPA.

Probably. Collegiate Athletics wasn't exactly a strong drawing point for the school. (except for some reason, Women's long distance running)

More like *really* geeky.
Absolutely nothing. They were blank.

Yes, Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

I know there were other seasons we went undefeated. 4.0 GPA for the entire team would have been very surprising, that's 50 or more men.

The really bizarre thing is that the school used to be (back in the 1920s!) very good nationally in Football. We played and beat Notre Dame back in the late 1920s. (Under the old name Carnegie Instititute of Technology)

I was reading a 1907 edition of the Handbook of Beta Theta Pi, which is on Google Books, today and came across something very interesting dealing with Alumni members, and since this thread seems to have been an offshoot from the original thread about the issues at Alabama and the Alumni, I thought I'd post it here (if this should be started as a new thread, please let me know):

According to the old Handbook (which was really a History of Beta Theta Pi written by William Baird (author of the Bairds Manuals)) he was writing about the convention of 1870 that an amendment was made to the constitution that -- "An alumni chapter may, by a unanimous vote, recommend a person for membership in the nearest chapter located at a college and upon such recommendation, such college chapter may elect and initiate such person as a member of such college chapter in the manner provided elsewhere."

Baird states that there is no evidence that this privilege was ever exercised, but it does seem interesting that back in the 1800s, alumni involvement with the chapters seems to have been highly involved, like it is today, and as was pointed out before that there should be some things that alumni should not be allowed to do........

Anyway, I thought it was interesting. Are there any other organizations who may have had such a rule on their books now or in the past? Even if it was never "used".

BG

Interesting that it doesn't state whether this person need be enrolled in school. Since it doesn't, I wonder if this was a precursor of the Alumni Initiate program?

This is embarrassing to admit, but I went to college right next door to you and I had no idea CMU even had a football team.

Especially SW Pennsylvania. Football is serious business there. I'd put it up against the legendary Texas football hysteria any day.

http://www.pittsburghquarterly.com/i...e-tartans.html

And we even beat Pitt a decent number of times prior to WWII. Carnegie Tech went to quite a few bowl games. Now what was *left* after President Doherty de-emphasized it is another story.

The only reason I remember it is that I was living in Denver, and read a small blurb in one of the Denver papers that mentioned it. One of those "can you even imagine ..."-type paragraphs used as filler. Not that I could have told you where the football stadium was (hyperbole; it was next to Tech House).

Mas importante:

Sorority Alums Claim Chapter Misrepresented

Letter to the Editor: Integration will help UA Sororities

Still hijacking thread here: Perhaps equally embarrassing to admit, our family visits college football stadiums on vacations/car trips and we have photos of us at CMU's football/track stadium during a Pittsburgh family reunion.

Sort of back on thread track: We have no relatives living in Alabama or I'm sure we'd have seen Bryant-Denny Stadium in person (AND adored their Greek Row nearby!).

Update

http://cw.ua.edu/2013/11/13/ua-emplo...t-allegations/

“University of Alabama System employee Emily Jamison has retired from her position as director for University, president’s and chancellor’s events.

“Emily retired from UA last month for personal reasons,” said Chris Bryant, assistant director of media relations and director of research communications, Thursday, Nov. 7.

In an article published by The Crimson White Sept. 11 titled “The Final Barrier,” Jamison, who served as a recruitment advisor for the UA chapter of Chi Omega, was named by an active member of the sorority as one of the reasons the sorority dropped a black potential new member during formal recruitment.
. . . “