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September 18, 2006

Family Zone Lack of Success Gets Noticed by Athens Paper

The Athens Banner Herald interviewed fans in the vacant Family Friendly Zones as part of an article that ran on Sunday. In the article one of the UGA fans said:
In contrast to years past, when North Campus was prime real estate for tailgating, the area was practically empty Saturday morning.

Satterfield said a video is circulating on the Web site YouTube of a nearly vacant North Campus before the season opener versus Western Kentucky two weeks ago, set to the Three Dog Night song "One Is the Loneliest Number."
Outstanding. I've got more video of the Familyless Tailgate Zones from the UAB game. Although, I doubt I can top the Three Dog Night version.

If you're wondering....fewer people tailgating on the Brooks Mall zone for UAB than WKU. Although there were more children this time than last. Then again, they brought twice as many "jumpy jump" inflatable things this time than last.

PWD

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The problem is not the Family Friendly Zones in and of themselves. The problem is the execution of the idea. The alcohol free area is a great solution for families and some alternative like this was needed. The problem is that the areas are designated in PRIME campus locations and the area they take up ovbiously exceeds the demand for them. Why ruin some tailgate traditions that run 40 years deep. If they've been around that long, who is the university to judge that they aren't family friendly. Let's reduce the size of the alcohol free zones and move them to some less prime real estate. Of course we could just keep having these blow hard noon kickoffs and pretty soon no one will tailgate at all. Isn't that what Adams wants anyways.

Astronaut Mike Dexter said...

You mean I could've actually gotten into one of those "jumpy jump" inflatable things before the game and missed out? Dammit.

Anonymous said...

So I'm not a geography major, but isn't Brooks Mall South Campus, down there by the Creamery?

P.S. Ain't nothin like ice cream from the Creamery on an April afternoon.

Anonymous said...

something tells me we won't be seeing any "jumpy jumps" next week in the grove...

Anonymous said...

I have to come clean....despite my hatred of this idea, I took my (almost) four year old to the "jumpy jump" on South campus.

Kid had a blast - went down the slide 25 times or so, all while Daddy is smiling and drinking his Makers from a Golden Pantry Cup. Then he (we) had some free popcorn, tosses a football through an inflatable target, got a boss football tatoo, and then went on our merry way to the game. It gave my boy great associations with UGA football, since at this point he's still to young to know what a zone blitz is.

As anon. 12:44 said, it's not the idea, it's the location. We could easily have the jumpy jumps and alcohol free zones on the Intramural Fields (as Groo at ugasports.com suggested)and leave the mall and North Campus beautiful and open for tailgating as it's meant to be

Unknown said...

Anon - I agree completely.

It's actually not a bad idea at all. It's entirely an issue of location, space and execution of the idea.

I'd wager that more people spent more time watching my video on YouTube than they spent reading the incredibly poorly done GamedayGamePlan.com info.

A site that waited until after the mailers were shipped and the publicity wave passed to let people know WHERE THE TAILGATE ZONES WERE LOCATED or where to park.

Some simple suggestions for improving the Tailgate experience would include:
1. Move the Band to the Intramural Fields. They take up 300+ parking spaces deep in the heart of campus, and limit the opportunity for folks to park near the Brook Mall area. They can be bused where ever they need to go.

2. Use the Practice Fields for the Family Friendly zones. The jumpy jumps wouldn't hurt the Artificial/Field Turf over there.

3. Open the Brooks Mall and North Campus areas back up to tailgating. There is simply no where near the demand for that much space.

The reason that there's no demand for the Tailgate Areas is that boozing was never that big a problem. All of this "reform" was driven by a problem of LITTER. Not one of booze consumption.


pwd

Anonymous said...

JDav, unfortunately scoops from Hodgson's now cost more than a quarter. Don't worry though, at least last I checked, they were only $0.50.

Anonymous said...

My South Campus, North Campus remark was in response to this paul...
"Satterfield said a video is circulating on the Web site YouTube of a nearly vacant North Campus before the season opener versus Western Kentucky two weeks ago, set to the Three Dog Night song "One Is the Loneliest Number."

Help me with my georgraphy here buddy. You shot your video on Brooks Mall correct? (aka--South Campus, near the Creamery, Forestry Science Building, The Vet School, and all that area)

Unknown said...

Begger - yeah. I shot the video at Brooks Mall; although, there was one photo of North Campus.

The article was quoting a fan remembering the video. Not the newspaper.

The error wasn't the paper's fault so I didn't bother to correct it.

Anonymous said...

Great choice of music on the first video.

May I suggest Eric Carmen's "All By Myself" for the second?

I didn't take any photos of North Campus this time. There were still no tailgaters but they had bigger jumpy jumps for UAB!

- Dawg N Suds

Anonymous said...

Starting 40 years ago we allowed nine children to play and grow up while attending our tailgate parties. All now have degrees. One MD, two masters, one working toward a PHD, One minister, a senior V.P and a V.P. They grew up in a real world,are assets to society, and never saw any of Mike Adams'little jumping thingies. How did they survive?

 
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