Your Illini Football Away Games Experience(s)

Fighter of the Nightman said:

Again, I get that money is probably the most important issue here, but if/when the time comes to renovate Memorial Stadium ... PLEASE take notes, DIA! What Washington did to their end zone seats is EXACTLY what we need to do, IMO. Pick a side to help enclose part of the stadium and have a more aesthetically pleasing exterior (probably the Horseshoe) and pick a side to have minimal capacity but look nice (probably the current student section structure, as is). Here is a view from the field of what Washington accomplished:


You want your fans as close to the field as possible, period.

Click to expand...

yea , but according to Ron Guenther, lowering the field in Champaign is IMPOSSIBLE.
This despite it being done all over the world, all the time, and the UofI having one of the worlds FINEST civil engineering departments .

It can be done, and hopefully it will be done. It is exactly what is needed to our field , and every field that used to have a track going around it.

1984 - at Miznoz. My friends and I had signed up for Block I and decided to take a big group on the road for the season opener. Our only loss, and it had the feel of 'not again'. There was a pretty good contingent of Illini fans, and I don't recall Missouri folks being obnoxious (strange considering some of the stories related here and by Alioneye). We had a great weekend, but still a crappy start to a magical season.

1986 - at USC. My LA work friends included a lot of Illini and USC grads. We did a big tailgate and then saw USC crush us. My USC fan friends were pretty tame, since they expected USC to roll us. Like someone else said about the Coliseum, some of the seats are far, far away from the field...we were sitting in those seats.

Been to a couple MD games. Felt like a run down stadium. They have a loyal fan group but they have a lot of fair weather fans