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Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Jackets cash in on visit by Irish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Folks do all sorts of crazy things when that blue and gold monster of a college football program is coming to town. Surely you know that whether Notre Dame has fangs or not during a given stretch, just the thought of a leprechaun doing a jig near goalposts is enough to produce an epidemic of cheering or cringing.
Such is especially true when Notre Dame plays in the vicinity of the Red River or south of the Mason-Dixon line. All you need to know is that the Fighting Irish once were showered at Georgia Tech with a lovely mixture of whiskey bottles and smelly fish.
And guess what? Notre Dame is slated for its first return to the Flats in 26 years this fall to open the season. Courtesy of actions at the ticket office by Tech honchos, the game already is larger than large.
For now, consider this: Not coincidentally, those in charge of such things at the University of Texas stirred up their already wired faithful even more for The Notre Dame Game in 1996. They made that the afternoon in which they dedicated what was Memorial Stadium to former Longhorns coach Darrell Royal.
We’re talking Darrell Royal, as in Texas’ Knute Rockne.
Elsewhere, three of the past four times Notre Dame visited Tennessee it was either a record crowd at Neyland Stadium or No. 2 on the list. Notre Dame’s only trip to Clemson, in 1977, produced the largest gathering ever in Death Valley at the time when Gamecocks weren’t involved. That same year, Notre Dame played Ole Miss in Jackson, drawing the largest crowd to witness a sporting event in Mississippi when the Crimson Tide wasn’t involved.
Earlier this decade, The Notre Dame Game set attendance highs for the legendary stadiums at Nebraska and Texas A&M. Not only that, Florida State has faced more than a few dynamic foes at home through the decades. Still, nothing stuffed the Seminoles’ place more at the time than The Notre Dame Game four years ago.
So if you’re among those Tech honchos, searching for only your sixth sellout since the ridiculous expansion of Bobby Dodd Stadium to 55,000 seats in 2002, I guess this makes sense: You continue a craze that has become rampant in sports called variable pricing, and you make The Notre Dame Game cost $12 more than any other home game on the Yellow Jackets’ schedule. That’s $50 compared to $38 for Miami, Virginia, Maryland and Duke and $28 for Samford and Troy. In fact, the only way you can see The Notre Dame Game is to purchase a Tech season ticket or hope that individual seats remain later this summer. If so, you would have to pay that $50 for The Notre Dame Game and buy tickets to two other games.
You’d think The Notre Dame Game was The Georgia Game or something. No, bigger. Thus a problem for a Tech program trying to end its seven-victory-a-season blahs under coach Chan Gailey.
Let’s just say The Georgia Game always brings out the wildest of feelings for Tech people at the end of the season. Now, with much help from Notre Dame just being Notre Dame, and with the national mania already surrounding Charlie Weis in his second season as the Irish’s miracle worker, and with these jacked-up tickets at Tech to create even more hype for The Notre Dame Game, the Jackets could lose even if they win. Translated: Tech players could become an emotional mess for the rest of the season no matter what.
“Well, I don’t think the prices of the games, for instance, ever filter down to the student-athletes or the coaches,” said Dan Radakovich, Tech’s recently named athletics director. “They’re going to go out there and play as hard against Notre Dame as they would against anybody else on the schedule. So I think that, really, what it boils down to is that some of the administrative and event-specific things will go on associated with the game. Notre Dame, if we charged $1 for everybody to get in, our student-athletes still would go out with the same enthusiasm and commitment to win as if we charged $50.”
That’s true. When tickets everywhere were closer to $1 than $50, Ole Miss had enough of that “enthusiasm and commitment” to shock Notre Dame that day in Jackson to give the Irish their only loss along the way to a national championship.
It’s just that Notre Dame whipped the previously undefeated Longhorns that day in front of their Rockne, and Texas lost six of its last 11 games.
Permalink | Comments (137) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
The Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
(Yes, it’s still an AJC.com exclusive!)
10: The subject of whether racism is to blame for people slamming Barry Bonds during his home run chase has come up again. So let me just go on the record right now. I’d hate him even if he were white.
9: Let’s see. Drugs have artificially inflated his home run numbers and probably his longevity. He has been an openly hostile, rude and dishonest person to almost everybody around him since Arizona State days. He has never shown himself to be a team leader or a winner. Now he is trying to reshape his image on a weekly series on ESPN in which he largely has artistic control. That should do it.
8: A woman will get admitted to Augusta National — before Barry Bonds.
7: Kobe Bryant — now there’s a leader. (Kidding.)
6: People, enough with the e-mail “enlightening” me that Augusta National is a private club. I mean, duh. What makes the club’s exclusionary policies different is that the club hosts the Masters. No other private club hosts such a high profile sports event. (Here come another 100 e-mails.)
5: Oh look — Chris Paul won rookie of the year! Wonder where Marvin Williams finished? Was it higher than where Billy Knight finished in the running for top NBA executive?
4: A rumor re-circulated last week that North Carolina State was talking to Bobby Cremins about its then-vacant coaching vacancy. So I phoned Cremins. “No,” Cremins said. “I’m not going to tell you I wouldn’t talk to them if they called. But the biggest problem I would have is playing Georgia Tech.” (N.C. State hired Sidney Lowe two days after that conversation.)
3: For what it’s worth, Cremins would not close the door to ever coaching again “if the situation was right.”
2: Randy Moss’s agent, Dante DiTrapano, was arrested with enough crack cocaine (73 chunks) and powder cocaine (21 grams) to start his own South American country. So Moss fired him. I will take this as a sign of maturity.
1: David Blaine made it out of the bubble. Any chance Jorge Sosa would try it next?
Permalink | Comments (31) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
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