After hearing about the changing of the football stadium’s home side and the parking changes, some people weren’t happy about it and some afraid to see tradition changed.
Dave Manning, 61, who has been going to BC games for over 50 years, commented on what he thought about the stadium changes.
“I have no problem with them switching sides, but I have a problem if the administration did it for any unknown reason and didn’t consult the coaching staff,” said Manning. He added that he thought the parking changes and the tailgating were a bigger problem.
“I’ve been tailgating here for 30 years and the way they got this parking set up, I mean, they got this section roped off and we couldn’t actually park in so we have to use two parking spots,” he said.
“They got 40 feet for people to just turn into the parking area, it’s just ridiculous. They put these barricades five feet inside then we get too deep. They tried to put regulations on tailgating eight years ago and people quit coming. They quit coming because they were saying ‘this is ridiculous.’
“Are you going to cater to 30 people here and then get 300-500 people ticked off? That’s stupid and poor policy.”
Barbie Hobbs, 59, who is a retired BC athletics secretary and has been going to games for over 45 years, gave her thoughts about the changes that were made.
“I’m not really excited,” Hobbs said. “You’re changing the home side as a traditional side to another side.”
“I think it will work in the end, but I prefer the home side to be the side closer to the school and I think that should go back.”
Beckwith explained the reasons behind all the changes beginning with the side change.
“I sat down with the coaches and it was a logistical thing for our team number one, and being in proximity to the coaches in the press box,” said Beckwith. “That was a big issue for us, being so far away that our coaches couldn’t get down and because in the stadium our headphones would give out when we were over there.
“Also, we film from the top of the press box and we’re giving away all of our signals when we send people our game tape.
“After analyzing all these things, the coaches wanted to change them and even coaches before them wanted to change sides.”
He added that tailgating wasn’t changed that much and also explained the reason behind the VIP parking.
“It actually wasn’t changed at all really for the tailgating, and really they were just changed 10 feet back so there’s still plenty of room out there,” he said. “As far as VIP parking, a lot of times people were coming up and complaining that there was no room for parking and they were afraid they weren’t going to have parking, so we just set it up that they would have a little area up here that guarantees you a spot if you pay for it. I think as soon as everyone sees the functionality of how everything goes, I think in the long run people will see that it’s a better thing for us.”
Beckwith also added that they are looking to make more changes to the stadium, like working on the landscape, putting a new surface on the track and the field that allows better function, but also that will allow more events to come into the stadium.