Heinz Field Gameday Atmosphere

One thing we've grown accustomed to at Pitt games is a lack of atmosphere. We all get it, the tailgating situation sucks, the fans can be apathetic most of the time, and overall there seems to be just a general lack of interest. Now this isn't a problem just for the football team, when the Zoo isn't making noise, the entire arena seems dead. Luckily it is easy for 1200 students to make noise in a 12,000 seat arena. In football we have to deal with a student section that is not always filled, an open ended stadium, and a team that has struggled in the past. All of those factors mean that the noise level isn't the same. Before you think I'm just ranting about the fans keep reading.

I was at a meeting with Steve Pederson and Dave Wannstedt where they challenged myself as well as other student leaders to improve the gameday atmosphere. While others were arguing that free t-shirts and hotdogs were the only way to get people to come, I argued that making the in game experience better was the real key for improving attendance (other than winning of course). Some people on SGB and other organizations felt I was crazy. Luckily Dr. Kathy Humphrey, Chris Ferris, and some other fellow student leaders agreed.

During the conclusion of the meeting, I along with our SGB president and Program Council Lecture Director was placed in charge of trying to figure out ways to make the in game experience better. One thing we all agreed upon was that there doesn't seem to be anything engaging the fans to make them feel more included in the game. Sure we want to have a beach ball in the student section and to incorporate other ideas to make the entire stadium seem like one cohesive unit. However, we felt that there was one big thing that Pitt hasn't used to our advantage yet. We have that massive jumbotron that usually is one big advertisement the entire game. Have you ever notice how excited people get when the Heinz ketchup flows??? That is why we decided that one of the most effective ways to improve the atmosphere is to use the jumbotron to get the crowd involved. Have you ever been to a Pens game and seen how they use a small outdated jumbotron to get the crowd fired up? Well, why can't we use our state of the art equipment to get our fans fired up?

During my last week of vacation before the summer semester starts, I am working to create video's and such to get the crowd involved. Things like showing a blue alarm going off with an airhorn signaling Code Blue (yes I know it is the code for death but just roll with it) for when the crowd needs to get pumped up on a big play. Also bring back the Panther growling on big third downs to let the team know we need noise (remember when we did that during the WaHa years?). Little things like player highlight packages such as when a player gets the ball, so a little highlight of him after the play (Heinz Field becoming overcast a.k.a. Shady, or Mo "Money in the Bank" Williams"). Also since we don't have the worlds most educated fans, we can use the jumbotron to get the fans to shut up when we are on offense.

There are endless possibilities here, and I hope that we can use this to our advantage. That is why I am encouraging all Cat Basket readers to email, post, or discuss any ideas that you might have to improve our in game atmosphere to: 1. help our team and 2. improve the atmosphere so that people will come to the game even when the team isn't performing as well as we would like.

So please, if you have any ideas let us know. I understand if you don't want to post since our fan base loves to turn on each other, but if you do, don't be afraid to email us: TheCatbasket@gmail.com or dpj731@gmail.com.

Hopefully we can use this to help make the gameday experience better and to keep Heinz Field packed.

I hate homecoming

Ok, I don't HATE all of it, just parts of it. I really like what we've done recently with painting all of the store fronts and campus buildings blue and gold. I like the fact that we strongly encourage all alumni to come back to Pitt for at least one football game. I like the fact that despite the fact that the Pitt Program Council screws it up, we have events on friday night before the game. In case you haven't seen it, the fireworks and laser light show on Bigelow the night before the game are two things that you should check out. Granted, the program council picks the worst music ever to accompany the lights and fireworks, but hey they need to cater to that 50 year old white population and not to what the students want to hear. Inside the union they have all types of fun stuff, the geeks get free DDR all night, you can take your significant other and have a caricature made, balloon animals will be made for you, have your fortune told, all in all it's not a bad deal. Outside of that fun free stuff, there is other stuff going on. South Oakland will have it's usual friday night house parties, no more and no less than a usual friday night. The frats become "by invite only" since all of the "brah" alumni are back in town and want to try to meet some nice freshman girls. The bar scene gets more packed too. If you think you can't move at hemingways on a usual friday night, watch out, it is a sardine can in that place. A lot of the other bars get packed too as the over flow makes its way to Peters, Garage Door, and Boomerangs. Basically, that entails your friday night before homecoming. I actually kind of like it.

Saturday........ This is where the complaints come flying. If you are a freshman who likes getting to the games early listen up. Despite the team being 2-4 and playing against a Cincy team that we do not match up well against. Despite the fact that it is a noon game that will be on tv. You better watch out. There will be hundreds of drunk sorority girls waiting in line just so they can be bored 2 hours before kickoff when the gates open, and be bored during the first half of the game. But at halftime, oh halftime, thats when the magic begins. Halftime of homecoming is the most important part of the Pitt football season. You get to see the crowning of king and queen. How exciting is that! Two jerkoffs that are stuck on themselves thinking they're better than everyone else trying to win a title that means jack shit.

Listen, I know it's one of the few traditions we have that "some" people rally around. I just don't see the point of promoting something stupid like this which ends up having people litter campus with fliers about why we should vote for you and what stupid dumbass organizations sponsor you. I hate walking around campus and having it look like Pitt is a day care center with all of the chalk marks on the ground. Every year since I've been at Pitt it has rained during homecoming week which I thought was great because it ruined the fliers and washed away the chalk. Unfortunately it looks like this week will be dry until the game on saturday. The worst part is, the rain will make it uncomfortable for everyone in the stands but it won't deter the drunken sorority girls from trying to take away the seats from the people who care about Pitt football. Last year a sorority thought it would be fun to run up to the seats and rope off 3 rows of seats! If they were at every game running up the ramp with me as soon as the gates open then I would be fine with them doing that. However! They only do this for one game, and as soon as the king and queen are announced all of them go back to the parking lots to start drinking.

This whole king and queen idea is a joke. It brings people to the games who do not cheer, do not understand our tradition. These people are the ones I mentioned in a previous post who make up the large majority of Pitt students who do not care about football.

My suggestion is this. Let the joke Pitt Program Council and their incompetent leader Tom Miseraca announce the stupid homecoming court at the beginning of the laser light show
and then during the fireworks, have Zambelli's take like a 3 minute break in between shooting them things off and announce the king and queen there. Put a spotlight on the winners as they walk up the stage and let the fireworks play with the Pitt fight song in the background. That would work for me. This really would be better for everyone. Sorority girls won't have to go and get hammered before the game and ruin the experience for everyone there. They can drink with their friends that night and not be bothered with waking up too early on saturday morning.

So like I said, real Pitt fans, get ready for a game that will annoy you way more than any ESPN game ever could. Instead of getting fair weather fans, you're getting fake/apathetic fans.

Pep rally and bonfire

So this is the first pep rally we have had since Wanny's first year. Being a 7th year student and this being my 6th rally, it's nice to see that nothing has changed. The cheerleaders lead everyone through the quad, we all wait for the band to show up, the band comes and plays for an hour, then the team comes. But right before the team comes out, the most exciting 15 minutes of the school year happens. 37 people who we don't give a (bad word) about come and give speeches (poorly). There is nothing I like seeing more than supposed "Campus leaders" who never even go to football games get up on stage and tell us we should be better fans. I think there were actually 7 student speakers, who all gave very poor speeches. Props to the guy from the greeks who didn't prepare anything and froze like a deer in headlights. Of everyone who spoke tonight, the only ones who were actually involved with Pitt athletics were Wanny and our 2 star defensive seniors Kennard Cox (who should never be able to speak publicly again) and Scott McKillop, who is crazier than I expected him to be.

Listen "leaders" we appreciate everything you pretend you do for us but I don't want to hear you say, "Yeah, this 1-11 EMU team is tough, we can't over look them". Listen, just get up there say go Pitt and stop wasting my time. Pitt Program Council, you suck, get over yourself, I hope Tom Miseraca gets fired.

On the important side I can give you some important observations. Here they are listed numerically.

1. Don't ever mess with Conredge Collins, he will kill you........seriously.
2. Aaron Berry screaming into the mic "where the hoes at?" was the highlight of the night.
3. Our secondary is the scariest group of players at Pitt.
4. Where was Pat Bostick. We saw Billy Stull looking like he needs to shave, but no Cat Basket.
5. Gus Mustakas looks like Ba Ba Booey.
6. Fire that guy from ESPN radio and bring back Andrew Stockey.
7. To the dance team and Cheerleaders......thanks for never changing, except you P10 (a.k.a. P9.5).

Thats all I got for now. JJones, keep the position break downs coming. We'll see you on Saturday.