Excitement on Campus

Fridays before home games are just so much different than normal school days. Tents are being put up all over, visitors from out of town are all over the place, students start acting crazy....it is just exciting. Players parents come by and visit, coaches have family members come by to say hello...you just know that game time is getting close.

We have been working over at the stadium locker room all day. We start at 8am and won't leave till later tonight. From 8 to 3pm we work over there in shifts, but at 3pm on Fridays we are a full crew. Some are over at the stadium, others are working in the equipment room and the rest are running our team walk thru practice out on Jiminez Practice Facility.

The team will leave McKale around 5pm today for their team hotel. Once they leave, we pretty much vacate McKale ourselves and do everything else over at the stadium. Because we take everything over last night, and we work throughout the day today, we will not be very late over at the stadium. We will set all the alarms, put security in place and leave for the evening. The managers really like this method because they can be pretty much free on Friday night to be with their families, or friends for social activities.

Tomorrow, Tim, Benny and I will arrive earlier than the managers and we will settle in for the day and night at the stadium. There is NO PLACE ELSE we would rather be (unless golfing).

Enjoy a few pictures from campus today:


Even the band is getting ready:

People are buying tickets for tomorrows game at the McKale main ticket office:
Very happy student with her new Zona Zoo t-shirt

There have been lines all week for the students to pick up their Zona Zoo shirt, but today it was pretty long all day:

This is what the shoulder pads look like when we tape them. It is two way tape, and tomorrow we will pull the blue part off of the tape and the jersey will stick to the pad:

Well, last night we took the player bags over, today they go in each players lockers and get unpacked:

Benny is doing a little touch up painting on one of the helmets:

Each Manager has players they have to get ready for the game. Here, Jordan is getting one of her players helmet ready by putting new decals on the helmet.

Bags ready to be unpacked and lockers ready for setting up:

Central Michigan's Equipment Staff showed up around 3pm today to get set up for the game and for a 4:30 team walk thru at the stadium: