Since the open spring practice is still a long three weeks away, I'm going to continue to make posts that are related to football only in the vague sense that they have something to do with the gameday atmosphere. My topic of the day? Fan attire.
Last year, the official student t-shirt was blue. This was a terrible idea. Bright colored student sections look infinitely better, and since Michigan has only one bright color (as opposed to say a Texas, who has both orange and white), the choice should obviously be maize every single time. I've already covered this in the past, so I won't get into it too deeply.
I'd now like to extend that ideal, and say that the fans not in the student section should wear yellow as well. The Athletic Department seems to be getting into this a little bit as well, as the slogan on the student shirts is "Go Blue, Wear Maize." Nothing bothers me more than the fans who come in their grey or white sweatshirts. Wearing blue is acceptable, wearing neither yellow nor blue shouldn't be.
Also, I have a great idea that has blatantly ripped from Penn State (in case you haven't noticed, I have some sort of weird thing for PSU).
In the section of the stands where the 'M' is, the fans should wear the color corresponding to their seat so that the figure comes out on TV. It looked really cool during the PSU/OSU game, and I think it's something that we should try as well.
Obviously, however, it is difficult to get fans to all wear the same color, it will be exceptionally difficult to get them to figure out where they're sitting, and dress accordingly. The solution? Give away the T-shirts. Not only could the athletic department manage to do this for free (corporate sponsors would pay for it, much like the towels from last year's OSU game), but it would be essentially the only way to guarantee that this cool visual imagery could take place.
The athletic department would know exactly how many of each shirt they would need to buy (allow me to suggest that blue shirts be given to those on blue seats inside the yellow box, and yellow shirts be provided for those sitting in yellow seats), and could give people the shirts as they enter the stadium in that section (although this would slow down the entry through those couple gates for a while, it would be well worth it).
For lack of information, I'm going to end this post here, but I certainly plan to follow up on it in the near future (i.e. when I take the time to figure out the numbers of shirts, etc.)
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