of masked fans attending a football game at Georgia Tech in 1918, during the Spanish flu pandemic. This week, I wanted to see the same place as it confronted a new pandemic, just over a century later. As luck would have it, one of my favorite teams, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, were playing at Georgia Tech on Halloween afternoon. This game was on the calendar before the pandemic, but originally scheduled to take place at the Mercedes Benz Stadium instead, presumably to the larger crowd expected for Notre Dame. As such, it had been one of my games before the pandemic, and since its the only game this season (so far, and most likely will continue to be) that regular fans can see Notre Dame in person, I knew I had to make it a priority. Up till now, only Notre Dame students and the family/friends of players have been able to see them in person.
My readers will remember that this isnt my first time at Georgia Tech. I attended the rivalry game against Georgia (my alma mater) last year, which was probably my fourth
game there overall. It was a very different experience watching another team beat the crap out of the Yellow Jackets in person.
But in all seriousness, I was grateful to have a very short trip this week. I actually got to wake up at a reasonable hour (something rare for a day trip, and especially with this pinched nerve in my shoulder) and even made it back home in time to watch the second half of most of the primetime football games on TV. And since I had walked around a good bit of Techs campus before, I didnt feel the need to explore it. Thats not to say that I didnt walk around and see new things.
In fact, because of the weird parking situation this year (fewer decks available for visitors), I ended up parking on opposite side of campus from the stadium. So it was a different perspective than in previous years: no athletic facilities until I got to the stadium, no fraternities or sororities, few dorms at all. I did get to see a nice open green space, and it was the only place I could tell that Halloween was upon us;
several decorated pumpkins were on the ground or on the ledges of walkways nearby. Around this green space were several classroom buildings, but to the west, it looked like they were constructing a new student center, so it was blocked off. No real problem, since the stadium was on the east side of campus anyway.
One of my traditions for Tech games has ALWAYS been to go to the Varsity, which is across the interstate on North Ave. Due to elevated triglycerides in my latest blood tests, however, I decided to forgo that tradition this time. Plus, thats more of a Tech tradition, and thats not even happening at all this year.
Instead, I had eaten a sandwich in the car, hoping to avoid paying for anything inside the stadium. I encountered a decent number of Notre Dame fans at the primary gate on North Avenue; most of them were wearing green. My first thought was, did I not get the memo? It didnt worry me too much, frankly, since I had other plans. Besides, I really dont like when Notre Dame wears green; their colors are blue and gold, and those are the to
me. And for today, since October is breast cancer awareness month, I had ordered a pink shirt from Notre Dame just for this occasion. So even if green had been the expected color, I was still going to disappoint. I was happy to hear several on the pink, though they probably didnt think I could hear them.
But things quickly demonstrated to me that this was not a regular season of college football. One of the primary differences I noticed this year was the crowd size; Georgia Techs Bobby Dodd Stadium holds 55,000 people, but it was limited to 11,000 (20% capacity) due to local and state ordinances. I have no idea how big the crowds are when Georgia isnt involved, but those games are usually packed.
The reduced capacity wasnt the only change in the crowd, however.
