Captain 14
- The Last Best Place
If you don't already own it pick up a copy of An Illini Place in hard cover. Put it on your Christmas list if your wife never knows what to buy you.
Big Ten Stadiums/Arenas (or Towns/Campuses) You Have Visited
Penn State. We live in Pennsylvania now, and were in the Penn Stater Hotel the night JoePa was fired and students rioted in campus town. We have not been to Beaver Stadium. We had an invitation to go with friends last year but since we have season tickets at Illinois, another weekend out was too much. Probably for the better. In our Orange, we might not have made it out of the stadium alive. PSU football fans are not nice.
Driving from the stadium… Think of leaving Memorial Stadium as a colander, with lots of different ways to go. Roads leaving State College are more like funnels. It’s not as bad as it was before I-99 was completed That highway, btw, is worth it for the drive alone. Stay off the Turpike, however. Construction by the Allegheny Tunnel will cost you an hour. From the west, use PA-66/US-22 instead.
The Bryce Jordan Center at PSU is very nice if fairly conventional. Concourses are wide and facilities generous. Good seats are available in the season ticket section on StubHub. For this year, we have second row seats midcourt that cost with fees less than $100 each. People are nice. After last year’s game, students told us how good Illinois was and wanted to talk basketball.
Driving from the stadium… Think of leaving Memorial Stadium as a colander, with lots of different ways to go. Roads leaving State College are more like funnels. It’s not as bad as it was before I-99 was completed That highway, btw, is worth it for the drive alone. Stay off the Turpike, however. Construction by the Allegheny Tunnel will cost you an hour. From the west, use PA-66/US-22 instead.
The Bryce Jordan Center at PSU is very nice if fairly conventional. Concourses are wide and facilities generous. Good seats are available in the season ticket section on StubHub. For this year, we have second row seats midcourt that cost with fees less than $100 each. People are nice. After last year’s game, students told us how good Illinois was and wanted to talk basketball.
Yes, that’s it. Great pizza, atmosphere.
DaChief4ever
- Urbana
Second on the Northwestern.....Kinda like a community college playing field....definitely small potato.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
For me, personally, I think I tend to separate "true college towns" from college campuses that are in much bigger cities. As I have said, I have not been to many Big Ten college towns, but I always got the vibe that the only "classic college towns" in every way are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan (even though it's big), Michigan State, Penn State and Purdue.
- I have heard from many people that Maryland and Minnesota still have an "urban vibe."
- I just cannot put the feel of Northwestern University together ... downtown Evanston was nice, if boring, and the campus was pretty yet seemed to lack atmosphere for me. I feel like I'm the only person alive who just is NOT impressed with this campus or Evanston, at least compared to others' perceptions.
- I've been told Ohio State is so huge as to not really be able to "absorb" any type of real atmosphere or understanding of the campus.
- I haven't heard much about Rutgers, but I always got the impression it seems quite suburban.
- I have been to Wisconsin, and it just seems so intertwined with Madison itself that I never really got a "college town feel."
- I have heard from many people that Maryland and Minnesota still have an "urban vibe."
- I just cannot put the feel of Northwestern University together ... downtown Evanston was nice, if boring, and the campus was pretty yet seemed to lack atmosphere for me. I feel like I'm the only person alive who just is NOT impressed with this campus or Evanston, at least compared to others' perceptions.
- I've been told Ohio State is so huge as to not really be able to "absorb" any type of real atmosphere or understanding of the campus.
- I haven't heard much about Rutgers, but I always got the impression it seems quite suburban.
- I have been to Wisconsin, and it just seems so intertwined with Madison itself that I never really got a "college town feel."
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I like Ryan Field. No frills, no fuss and an old-school feel.
It's a stadium for the Midwestern private school in Evanston that Northwestern is, not the global Chicago icon it pretends to be.
See y'all there in November.
It's a stadium for the Midwestern private school in Evanston that Northwestern is, not the global Chicago icon it pretends to be.
See y'all there in November.
Finally, Illinois. We had been away from campus so long… So much has changed. We were on the Quad, unchanged but for the bike racks. These “green” students of today , they don’t ride? Anyway, we spoke with a student who took our picture for us, and asked her class year. Her answer: 2020. Doing the quick math, she must have looked at us the way we would have at the class of 1920, the year after my father was born, three years before Memorial Stadium was opened.
With that as prologue, the stadium had changed little from its original. For Block I—the card section—we entered from the East Gate, where the players come in now, basically just a gate, leading to the track that was still there. I never walked in the concourse in all my time as a student. North and east of the stadium, as I recall, was just grass. Concessions? All games started at 1:00 and took less than three hours. You didn’t have to leave your seat, at least with young strong bladders. I don’t even know if there were concessions.
The Assembly Hall was brand new, a year older than the Arch, and Kennedy said we were going to the moon. What a time. Basketball wasn’t my thing, however, certainly not enough to wait in line around the Assembly Hall, sharing queue time with a specified number of others, per Assembly Hall rules.
As a side note, there was one graduation ceremony including bachelors, masters and PhD. Everyone, including five(?) guests per each grad, For undergrads, the whole ceremony was, by college, stand, move your tassel, sit down, go take some pictures on the lawn, turn in your robe and get out of here. Of course, this was before they had graduation ceremonies for graduation from preschool.
One more note: I have my uncle’s diploma from his 1953 graduation from Pennsylvania State College. PSU wouldn’t become a university until shortly thereafter.
With that as prologue, the stadium had changed little from its original. For Block I—the card section—we entered from the East Gate, where the players come in now, basically just a gate, leading to the track that was still there. I never walked in the concourse in all my time as a student. North and east of the stadium, as I recall, was just grass. Concessions? All games started at 1:00 and took less than three hours. You didn’t have to leave your seat, at least with young strong bladders. I don’t even know if there were concessions.
The Assembly Hall was brand new, a year older than the Arch, and Kennedy said we were going to the moon. What a time. Basketball wasn’t my thing, however, certainly not enough to wait in line around the Assembly Hall, sharing queue time with a specified number of others, per Assembly Hall rules.
As a side note, there was one graduation ceremony including bachelors, masters and PhD. Everyone, including five(?) guests per each grad, For undergrads, the whole ceremony was, by college, stand, move your tassel, sit down, go take some pictures on the lawn, turn in your robe and get out of here. Of course, this was before they had graduation ceremonies for graduation from preschool.
One more note: I have my uncle’s diploma from his 1953 graduation from Pennsylvania State College. PSU wouldn’t become a university until shortly thereafter.
I would say Maryland has more of a suburban vibe, on the northern edge of the metro DC area, while Minny is in the city.
MoCoMdIllini
- Montgomery County, Maryland
Oh yeah. I've been to Ryan field a couple of times. How could I forget?
On the last visit, we took the CTA up there from my wife's place in Lakeview. A guy stood up and gave a monolog about "ze heavy vater".
Campus seemed nice enough, such that we got to see it on the walk from the train station.
The game day experience wasn't all that memorable. There was the band which was decent, a surprising number of visiting fans on the far side of the field, and there were purple and white mums behind the end zone.
The game Itself? That Ben Roethlisberger guy was pretty good at football, as I recall. I don't remember the score but my wife was in disbelief that her cats had lost to Miami of Ohio.
I think Maryland still has cows.
KBLEE
- Montgomery, IL
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
Thanks! That's fabulous. I was unaware of that book. Looks excellent (Amazon has a preview). Will buy it stat.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
This type of discrepancy is so weird yet so common! Talk to someone from Iowa City about Ames or Champaign, and they'll say they suck ... check any top college town lists, and they'll both be on there. Part of it is bias from a rival fan base, but I think it's also that people tend to prefer college towns that are similar to the ones they already like/where they attended.
Agree. I have spent extensive time all three of these locations. Strictly for campus, I would rank as Illinois, Iowa State, Iowa.
But if you include the surrounding area, I think Iowa City rises to the top. Ames and Champaign are roughly the same to me. Throw in Urbana and UIUC probably comes in 2nd here.
I’ve been told they do, and great ice cream. Penn State too. Visit the Creamery if you go to the campus.
I have been to quite a few. Not Maryland nor Rutgers. From a campus/campus town/sports arenas/environment I put them in categories. OSU, MN, NW, and even WI and Nebraska are part of a too big of a city/town to have have their own character. MSU/East Lansing and PU/West Lafayette were not worth revisiting (yuck!). IU's campus is gorgeous, but not integrated with town. UM/Ann Arbor checks a lot of boxes. That leaves IA/Iowa City, PSU/State College, and UI/Chambana. These 3 I put in the same category. I don't think Iowa has a beautiful campus, but it has an integrated fun campus town and residential area. PSU/State College has everything you would want in a campus and college town. UIUC had it all. Beautiful campus. No other quad comparable to this and a fun integrated campus town. Urbana is a wonderful college town (Champaign, not so much). NOW, campus town sucks. The entire environment has changed for the worse. Sorry to say, but I have no reason to go back to UIUC again except to watch a FB or BB game and then quickly leave.
I worked concessions on the East side as a high school student for 2 years ('67 &'68) mainly as a way to see Illini football. At that time, the East side concession area under the stands was basically a row of wood and screen boxes (with an opening at each end for customers to walk through) set on a cinder floor. I would sell hot dogs, ice cream sandwiches, etc. in the lower stands during game and work underneath the stands at half time. Had a great time. The experience further solidified my attachment to Illinois football. Receiving my acceptance letter to Illinois in 1970 was one of the greatest days in my now 70 year life.
GO ILLINI!!!
I miss the old town feel on campus town. It now reminds me of something made from a Kenner Girder and Panel building Set.
Rutgers is made up of five "campuses," located on both sides of the Raritan River, with a bus system carrying students between them. The football (Busch campus) and basketball facilities (Livingston campus) are on the Piscataway side, which do have more of a suburban, office-park feel. The College Avenue campus, on the New Brunswick side, is what it is closest to Illinois, with the school's quad and Campustown area.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
FWIW, Downtown Champaign is flat out unrecognizable from what it looked like even as late as 2012, and it’s very nice and fun.
We DEFINITELY do most of our bar hopping Downtown these days.
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There are a number of new buildings just west of campus... I assume they're apartments... that look like they were built to height restrictions and lot lines, and are completely incongruous to previous design and building types. It feels very disjointed, like it was thrown up in a rush and without a plan.
Unfortunately C-U doesn't have any beautifying natural features, so depends almost entirely on its built environment for its attractiveness.
Downtown Champaign is light years nicer than it was when I was in school or even 20 years ago. The campus area has unfortunately gone in the other direction
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
40-ish years ago (!!!) my parents operated a retail store on Main Street in downtown Champaign east of Neil. It was not a place to be after dark--at the tender age of 13 or 14 I had my first encounter with a working girl, but had absolutely no idea what she meant when she asked if I wanted a date. Probably a good thing, I didn't get much of an allowance in those days.