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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/DawgsNRoses on 2024-08-10 17:53:47+00:00.
I started going to games at age 5 back in 1986.
I don’t believe smoking was banned in Sanford Stadium until sometime around the mid 90s. The guy in the seat immediately in front of us was never without his cherry blend pipe… and it was GLORIOUS (If you know, you know).
The smell of one of those immediately transports me back to my childhood in that seat in section 335.
Man what I would give to walk into a stadium on a crisp fall Saturday and be hit with the smell of cherry blend tobacco mingled with stadium peanuts. One of my all-time favorite memories. I’m almost getting misty-eyed just typing about it.
Another thing I miss is a “quieter” stadium. This may be an experience more specific to Georgia fans and just a handful of other schools (I imagine Tennessee & Mississippi State fall in this category). Back when Larry Munson was our radio announcer and particularly prior to a video scoreboard, EVERY self-respecting Georgia fan was wearing headphones. You didn’t really chat with the people around you save for during commercial breaks. Instead, you let your legendary radio announcer narrate what you were watching in real time. And if your school had a legendary announcer, it was just a magical experience.
After the game you’d get in the car and make the long dark drive home through the night clinging to the increasingly poor signal of the post game show. And when that gave out, you’d swap over to the inexplicably strong station coming out of New Orleans and listen to a crystal clear broadcast of what was happening in some far-flung foreign land called Baton Rouge as LSU took on Tulane or Auburn deep into the midnight hour.
Back in those days, very few games were televised, so places like Tiger Stadium felt more imagined than real… particularly to a young kid.
Yet another dear memory was the daily race to the mailbox right around this time of year to see if the tickets had arrived. What kind of amazing design was going to be printed across those priceless little pieces of card-stock that held the promise of admission to the most magical place on earth?
And then when September hit, the holy pilgrimage to the stadium where you were immediately on the lookout for one of your peers who had what you could only imagine was the best damn job in the world… selling programs. When your dad handed that kid 2 crumpled 1 dollar bills and you got that program in hand, it really started to feel like gameday.
Of course the was the obligatory stop at the concession stand for a Coca-Cola. When you got that 12oz cup, you examined that design and appraised how it stacked up against previous years. That plastic cup would be a more cherished heirloom to you than your mother’s fine china and silverware ever were to her.
Those days feel so long gone now. I’ll never experience that perfect stadium smell again. Legendary radio announcers have given way to an army of soulless ESPN wannabe clones. Games are so ubiquitous on TV there’s no mystery to what far off cathedrals of college football look like. Those titanic clashes between other schools now play out on YouTube from your smart phone instead of in your minds eye. Tickets are all but a thing of the past as they’ve given way to QR codes that exist as 1s and 0s hidden away in the black mirror you carry in your pocket. Programs have all but disappeared with schools content to just upload them online. Those perfect 12 ounce cups with images that withstood decades of trips through your dishwasher have morphed into 36 ounce behemoths that won’t fit in your kitchen cabinets or your car cupholder and are so cheaply printed that the design begins to peel off after one wash.
As other people complain about NIL and the transfer portal, these are the aspects of college football that I miss the most. I’m not advocating that we bring back smoking, but the rest of it… what a loss. Having a shoebox tucked away with all those ticket stubs and the memories that came flooding back when you would go through them all. They were like baseball cards, but a million times better. Same with the programs. I wonder sometimes if we’re depriving the new generation of young fans that tangible connection to the game that they can carry home and cherish. I wish we could bring back the artistry of those old gravely voiced announcers who chomped on cigars and sipped bourbon as they urged the good guys on to victory.
Maybe I’ve just got an overly nostalgic attitude towards small things that don’t matter all that much. But as I look around the stadium and see kids more occupied posting about their presence at the game on Instagram than actually EXPERIENCING the game… when I see the crowd get more pumped for the karaoke cam or which dog house an animated mascot has hidden the McDonald’s fry box in… or preferring Lil’ Wayne being pumped in over the loudspeakers to the Marching Band providing the soundtrack for the day… I just feel sad that they’ll never get to experience this sport the way I did. And that so many experiences that made this sport what it is to me are slipping further away as we plunge towards a new and “improved” fan experience brought to you by ESPN, AT&T, State Farm Insurance, & The Home Depot.
Guess I just didn’t think I’d be an old man shaking my fist and yelling at clouds at age 43.