Glass presents game day fanfare additions

IU Athletics has made an annual effort since 2009 to improve the IU football experience for fans and players alike.

This year, five years since Memorial Stadium was overhauled with the facelift of the north end zone, IU Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Fred Glass announced Monday that he will add more fanfare to the game day experience.

The enhancements were broken down into four categories: infrastructure improvements, building awareness for game day, pre-game and in-game.

The two physically apparent additions are the prow of the U.S.S. Indiana and the 154.5-foot flagpole constructed near the south end zone. The concourses have been updated with new flat screen televisions. Some improvements were designed for the fans, including improved cell phone connectivity through Verizon, three more t-shirt machine guns and a cannon, “Big Jake,” that will shoot off after IU scores.

The effort to build awareness for IU football isn’t limited to gamedays. There will be Thursday flash mob rallies, Friday night spirit patrols and an increased social media presence, which will feature contests for fans.

The Hoosier football team’s pre-game walk will now begin at 17th and Woodlawn and will include a stop by the tailgate fields so that fans can more actively interact with players before the games.

There will be new cheers, a weekly helmet giveaway and performance awards that could allow fans to get discounts at Kilroy’s and Papa John’s. Daniel Weber and Brice Fox, who produced “This is Indiana,” will make a new football song and video that will premiere at the Penn State game Oct. 5. 

“We’re trying to keep a kind of a campaign edge, kind of a revolution edge,” Glass said, “and challenge ourselves just like we sort of challenged the things that were here when we got here five years ago.”

Glass, who was hired in 2009, said after making the changes to the north end zone and hiring IU Coach Kevin Wilson, this year was more difficult to find ways to make major improvements, but that he thinks fans will find the gameday experience at Memorial Stadium much better.

“I think one of the real challenges for anyone who’s involved in a leadership position ... is that you’ve got to keep looking at your role and what’s going on with external eyes,” he said. “That’s real easy when it’s new, and it’s easy when you’re challenging the views of the previous regime, and it’s easy when you’re solving the poblems of the previous regime. It’s harder when you’ve been there long enough to create your own problems and your own things need to be re-evaluated, and so it’s sort of like the revolution.”

As part of its evaluation of the Glass “regime,” IU Athletics decided to incorporate the student body. Since the fans are a large part of the gameday experience, the Student Athletic Board met with the Marching Hundred, Redsteppers, Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Association, IUSA, Resident Assistants and Student Orientation Leaders in order to seek advice that accurately represented the IU student population.

With eight home games on the IU football slate in 2013, IU Athletics will have many opportunities to showcase the numerous enhancements.

Glass said the process has been “highly collaborative” with the football staff, and he said he frequently met with Wilson to discuss the additions.

“We really appreciate the work that Mr. Glass, the administration and our student leaders contributed to make Memorial Stadium the place to be on gameday,” Wilson said in a press release. “The commitment from our administration has been awesome and we can’t thank everyone enough. Hoosier Nation, we need you to come out in full force, be loud and let’s win together.”