I wasn’t able to attend last night’s EMU vs. Army football game, which is a shame since it is the only home night game on the schedule, and the night games can be kind of fun. But a loyal EMUTalk.org reader did go and I was happy to receive the following report:
“Eastern Michigan (0-1) gave themselves a fighting chance against the Army Black Knights (1-0) Saturday night at Rynearson Stadium. A late drive by Army, however, iced whatever exaltation EMU fans were feeling late in the game when it seemed possible that we were going to erase the losing streak. EMU took the lead, 27-24, with three minutes left, but Army soldiered back down the field to score-a drive that didn’t involve a single pass play. Final: Army 31, EMU 27. By all impressions these Eagles are markedly better than last year’s team, but fans near where I sat agreed that next week’s game at Miami-OH is a must-win if Coach English and the Eagles are to avoid an 0-4 start.
“As for the event itself, the operations side of things seemed shaky, though perhaps this is to be expected at season openers. Some kind of power surge or blown breaker (heck, I don’t know what happened, but I do know this much: call an electrician!) caused the west side of the stadium to lose electricity in the second quarter. The stadium lights were restored within 10 minutes, but the scoreboard was without power for the remainder of the game. Clearly people were working on the problem, though, because somebody brought a ladder out to the scoreboard, and a few minutes later, event operations staff rolled a small portable scoreboard to the northeast corner of the field. There was much confusion related to this series of events. In the third quarter, the portable scoreboard showed the score only. By the fourth quarter, the officials gathered into a huddle near the scoreboard and for the remainder of the game, and the time and score seemed to be on track until the end.
“The public address system wasn’t much help in this regard, and this was the most perplexing aspect of this mishap. Electrical failures are unfortunate; they are difficult to anticipate. But information was hard to come by once the scoreboard failed. Announcements over the loudspeaker were surprisingly infrequent. Nobody announced to fans what had happened, how much time was remaining, or what the score was (until the portable scoreboard showed up). The lack of public address also led to uncoordinated pre-game activities. For example, nobody announced when to stand and face the flag. The band started playing the Star-Spangled Banner, but fans on both sides of the stadium shuffled around as if surprised-removing hats, etc.-well after the band started playing the Anthem. A vocal public address announcer last night would have done much to alleviate the scoreboard fiasco and the information-poor experience that resulted from it.
“On a brighter note, these operations issues will no doubt be smoothed out when Central Michigan comes to Ypsilanti on the 18th. Also, the practice bubble adjacent to Rynearson was lit from the inside during the event last night, which, even if it appeared to be electrically flamboyant given the evening’s earlier mishap, did showcase just how aesthetically impressive and inflated a structure it is.”
That last paragraph refers to this picture:
As this correspondent noted, with all the talk of energy savings and such at EMU as of late, you’d think that they could have turned the lights off in the dome during the game. And maybe that caused the power mess-ups with the scoreboard?
Here’s a link to the annarbor.com story about the game; here’s a link to the Echo story.
By the way, on a slightly related note: I was talking with my father this morning. My parents still live in Iowa (go Hawks!), and my dad told me that he read a little blurb in The Des Monies Register about “that coach you have at EMU and the single mom crack,” or something to that effect. Not exactly the kind of publicity that is doing English and his recruiting any good….
Great game, down to the wire. They looked like they were having fun and wanted to win. That’s the first hurtle. On the other hand, the hot dogs served at the Alumni tent were really bad. Some of them appeared to have a green tint. If you can’t serve good food, don’t serve any at all! Next time I’m stopping at McDonald’s. The fact that food might be free is not worth the indigestion.
Steve: Once the score board went down, so did the sound system, which is inside it. Did add to the confusion. Almost topped the Tammy Wynett fiasco of 25+ years ago when she performed pre-game or half time at Rynearson – sound system went bonkers.
Here’s my writeup of the game, along with a couple photos I took.
Is this the brand new, $500,000 score board that was purchased despite not being in the budget?
Gipper, I do believe it is — it’s the only scoreboard at Rynearson Stadium.
Thanks, Cmadler, for your very detailed write up of the game, and for verifying that the scoreboard problem was with the NEW, very expensive scoreboard. The old one, which was removed, worked, as I recall.
And why can’t they get decent, edible food served there? That problem has persisted for years, doing a lot of marketing by negative experiences.
Too bad the eagles lost, even if narrowly in the 4th.
Well, I suspect there’s a little bit of the chicken and egg conundrum regarding the food. Of course bad food plays in to an overall poor experience at the game, but when attendance is at the level EMU has had in 2009 and 2010, I’m sure it’s hard to get quality vendors in. Consider EMU’s position in trying to sell a vendor on coming: “Well, we might get lucky and have 15,000 people, but we might get unlucky and have 1,500 people. You can bring food for 15,000 and take a loss if attendance is low, or you can plan for 1,500 and run out of food, annoying everyone.” That’s one of the many advantages of selling out a smaller stadium rather than having empty seats in a too-big stadium: you know pretty well what your attendance figure will be and can plan for an appropriate amount of food.
I’m liking those new uniforms.
cmadler: The only vendor is basically the University Food Service. They have a few outside vendors on the inside of the fence but that’s the exception. If you have an event on campus you have to use the University food service. No problem with getting vendors to come in, they just won’t let them. Hence, crappy hot dogs and not much bang for your buck.
In regard to the score board. All the guts are new. The old steel structure was used.
You could no longer buy parts or lights for the old scoreboard.
No food should be served any where on campus that is not good enough to make the people to whom it is served fondly anticipate returning another time, to the same kind of venue and event, to enjoy more of that food. This is the standard in the food service industry, and it sure as heck should be the standard on this campus, as it is on most.
Somehow, for most of the campus, that standard is achieved, but year after year, not true for football and other athletic events. We’ve made hundreds of fans sick over the years with the kind of food Alum describes, and nobody thinks, fondly, of going to an EMU game and enjoying the food. The negative consequences for the University are not trivial. Local school groups have been brought to EMU games, and made sick by the food, and then have talked for weeks about how “bad EMU is” because of the “gross” food. Marketing people should take notice of this, if they are serious about increasing game attendance or about protecting the university’s reputation. Games are supposed to represent the University well, not at sub-standard levels of performance on such things as food service even non-athletic levels.
Would it be a faux pas to serve cooked emus at our home games?
Alum: sorry, I was thinking of the outside vendors, which on Saturday, comprised Caribou Coffee, a popcorn cart, and two carnival food vendors. (Maybe one other I forgot?)
Emu is good eatin’– sort of like beefy chicken.
I might be wrong about this, but I was under the impression that at U of M, at least some of the concession stands were run by various local groups trying to raise money for some cause– you know, a local soccer league, a women’s shelter, whatever. Maybe even church groups, I’m not sure.
Anyway, it might cost EMU the $200 they make selling stuff, but if they could figure out a way to get it approved for outside groups to come in to sell hot dogs and such and use it as a fundraiser, it’d probably be better food and a great community building gesture. Just saying.
I can’t speak about the current food vendors, but right now many colleges (and professional facilities) are becoming wary about bringing in outside groups because of the high number of “food” violations that happen in facilities. (The Detroit professional stadiums fared the worse in the report.) With health department crack downs, etc., I’m not sure we will see the same number of organizations being able to run concession stands in facilities.