Blue & Gold

I remember being really proud of the band at the Motor City Bowl a few years ago! I thought you guys looked really sharp! And sounded great! I'm excited to see what kind of attitude is naturally infused into both the band and the crowd simply by marching in a first-class venue like the Info. I'm guessing that many Zips fans and many band members will have different mindsets just by being associated with the Info.I think what Zipsrifle mentioned a few pages back should be reiterated. He stated that, concerning the halftime show, have at it, do what ever you want and feel that you can successfully pull off!The pregame is what was initially most important to this conversation. It was mentioned by a handful of us how much we LOVE a serious, disciplined band who marches with precision, plays the fight song and breaks off some adrenaline-inducing drum cadences.As much as I hate to say it, OSU's band does a world-class job of getting people jacked up before the game. Music is so interesting. Human beings are most definitely hard-wired to respond to music. It so naturally evokes so many emotions. The marching band should be like the bands/drum lines that used to lead battalions of soldiers into war. A drum line can make men willing to fight to the death for a cause they may not even believe in! The last link is an amazing link. It clearly shows how people respond to the drum cadence. Honestly, I'm 5-8, 175 and after hearing the OSU drum cadence I'm ready to go tackle Almondo Sewell! Lol. But for the halftime shows, do whatever you want! Shoot for more difficult numbers! But IMHO the pregame fare should feature the fight song, and drum cadences! Lead us into war!P.s. In the linky I entitled "Watch This! Crazy!" it should be noted that, though you can't hear the drum cadence on the video, the OSU band gets it going for a while BEFORE they enter the arena. Everyone in the arena can clearly hear the cadence and gets all jacked & THEN the band enters. It's almost scary what music can do to otherwise rational human beings!

Cool. Good luck! Where'd you play high school ball?I played at Wadsworth. We have 7 guys that have played college baseball at a variety of schools (including myself) and we actually should have a pretty good club. I would be surprised if a few of the guys (a few that have transferred into Akron this year) don't make the Varsity this fall. If you come out you may be pleasantly surprised how good of a team we have fielded.Sweet. Wadsworth ALWAYS has a really good program. I played at Green so am well aware of that! One summer I played on an outrageously stacked AA team (back in the day) called the Boys of Summer with players from Wadsworth, Norton, Tallmadge, Hoban & St.V/M and elsewhere around Summit. We were crazy good. I was supposed to play at Malone but didn't end up wanting to give it the necessary effort. But that made me quite familiar with how good even small college ball is! Let alone D-1 - a level at which I could have never played. I can't make it on Sunday, but good luck, have fun & keep us updated on the schedule - I wouldn't mind watching a game at all!

Unfortunately, It was my understanding that the only seat backed bleachers will be those you see pictured on the 50 yard line.

Dude, you were in my tour group! I'm in pic 5! Your pics turned out WAY better than mine. I guess that is what I get for having an old digital camera. I'll try to get my stuff up here soon!Cool! Fortunately when we toured the stadium the sun was out so the pictures did turn out nicely!

Exactly!!

I was just assuming that both General Admission and the Family Section are first come, first serve. Arrive early to get the best seats; just like GA @ the Rubberbowl.

Man, it's not that, it's just where do you begin?Firstly, it was offense v defense. And since it's Zips v Zips it's kinda hard to say how the team is looking as a whole (at least for me it is - I never know if our offense looks good or if our defense just looks bad, or whether our defense looks good or our offense just looks bad.)I though CJ looked good. I thought Nadir Brown looked VERY good!I think our linebackers look undersized but fast and aggressive. I was happy to see more men on the line of scrimmage. I noticed once that we had 3 down linemen and Shawn Lemon also on the LOS but in an upright position. That's okay by me - that's the same thing as 4 DL.Almondo Sewell and Marquin (sp?) Davis walked right by me AND THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY FREAKING, FREAKING, FREAKING HUGE.Here is a link to Rasor's blog. He does a good job breaking things down.Rasor on the Zips

Cool. Good luck! Where'd you play high school ball?

My apologies, but I can't figure it out. I downloaded my pictures to photobucket. But when I tried to post them here I received this message.You are not allowed to use that image extension on this board. A valid format is: http://www.domain.com/picture.gif, an invalid format is: http://www.domain.com/picture.one.gifMaybe you can just visit the gallery I created @ Photobucket. Here's the link.Info Pics @ PhotobucketOkay, that'll have to work. You'll find 13 pretty nice pictures with a brief description of each.Thanks for trying to help a computer-illiterate out!

Blue & Gold,Try uploading your photos to the Gallery here. You'll need to click on the Gallery Tab above, and create your own gallery. Then once they're uploaded, you can link to them using the "insert image" link above that's 2 to the right of the smiley pulldown.You could also upload to any other free gallery like Flickr or whatever and link to them that way.Hope this helps,ZWWow, I'm an idiot. Once I click the Gallery tab and am in the Gallery, I just don't see how to make my own Gallery. Thanks for the help. I took my camera today specifically because I wanted to post some pictures on here.

Exactly. It would level the playing field (not entirely, but some). The BCS is a racket, they know it, and something must be done about it. Someone said that the BCS is close to organized crime. That's right. If even for the simple sake of what is right and what is wrong, the BCS must be drastically altered if not done away with entirely.

Wow, well said!Btw, did anyone else notice the distinct aroma of charcoal outside the Stile Field House today? It was great! I remember going to Camden Yards in Baltimore and before the game there were all sorts of street-side food vendors set up between the baseball stadium and the right field warehouse. It smelled great. I've been told that Fenway Park in Boston is the same way. Maybe we can get a handful of food vendors to set up shop around the Info - make it almost like a mini-county fair food scene? Ribs, sausage sandwiches, elephant ears, lemonade, gyros, etc. The entire stadium area should smell of a boutique of mouth-watering aromas. When the aroma of polish sausage & charcoal drifts into & fills the Info, all the better! That couldn't help but drive concession sales inside the Info as well. Mmm. People will know that they are at an event!Also, a few guys in my tour group were wondering about alcohol sales. (It was the first question that was asked. Lol.) The answer was that that the board of trustees haven't made up their minds yet.I don't drink. But I think that they should sell beer @ the games. That's just seems to be a big part of the American sports scene experience. And why not? They always make a killing on those $6 beers.

Well, in experimenting with how exactly to post a picture(s) here, in the attachment space I have apparently used 445.09K of an available 1000K. I can't figure out how to clear more space and unfortunately even one picture requires more K than is available. Whatever. I hate PCs. I wish I could afford a Mac. A Mac would probably upload the photos for me! Lol. Sorry, no pics.

peter_griffin.bmpHmm. I'm just trying to figure out how to post a picture on here.

If OU can do it with 110, I say we shoot for 110. We don't need a big, sloppy band just to cover the whole field. We need a more elite group of precision marchers, who take the band seriously, and who play loud. Likewise, OSU's band isn't a huge band, is it? However, they may get away with having fewer members because, if I'm not mistaken, they only allow brass and percussion in the marching band, am I correct? Thus the high volume they produce with a smaller number of precision marchers.If we would actually DECREASE the size of our present band, it may have the effect of making a position on the marching band a prestigious position? Something that must be earned? thus, decreasing the number of openings in the marching band may produce the effect we're desiring?

Come on fellas, let's not get this topic locked! This thread has to be some kind of ZipsNation record! 53 pages, 780 replies and counting!

And I believe he's going to be on campus two weekends in a row - firstly for his official visit, and secondly for LeBron's AAU tournament. Hopefully by the second weekend this place will feel very familiar to him!

Wow. That is very intense! I don't know if I like the idea of coming out to a sound tract though. Not when you've got a marching band on the field already.The Zips have to come out to a sound track. sorry to say but the crowd/team will not get too pumped just hearing the band. VT is a good example, but South Carolina has by far the best entrance in college football. you have to go about halfway through the video...We're supposedly fitting the Info with a great sound system, so an entrance like that could most definitely rock.

It is absolutely just my opinion, and isn't worth a cup of coffee, but I really favor the MAC as opposed to C-USA. In my daydreams I envision us dominating the MAC. I really think that would fill the stands. I might be wrong.However, I do like the way that our university fits in with much of the urban university culture of the football Big East. SyracuseLouisvilleCincinnatiPittRutgersUSFI can see Akron fitting in nicely with that list of schools. And competing as well.

Wow. That is very intense! I don't know if I like the idea of coming out to a sound tract though. Not when you've got a marching band on the field already.

That'd be nice and all, but we'd better make some big noise fast if that was to happen. Personally, I'd be much more content with being a perennial MAC powerhouse and having a consistent winning tradition than jumping to the big stage and being a .500 team. I am not so sure that if the Big10 were to expand to 12 teams that they'd pick up a mid-major MAC team. If anything they'd probably try to convince Notre Dame to join.The big ten has no benefit in taking in Akron. I'm assuming that was sarcasm.And UAZips man is correct, they wouldn't pick from the mid major ranks.That's very debatable. I also doubt you have any insiders in the Big Ten camp that could back your assumption.Most any conference would take someone like Notre Dame so that's irrelevant. The point is, Akron is growing alot and who knows in a few years we could be a good fit.I don't like making dogmatic statements, so I won't say we're never getting invited to join the Big Ten. But we're never getting invited to join the Big Ten. (And, no, I don't have any inside information.) But they would invite West Virginia, Missouri, UConn, Maryland, Virginia Tech, Cincinnati, Pitt or possibly Kentucky to join before they would invite us. And I still think the Big Ten is hoping Notre Dame wants to join; about 10 years ago they extended an invitation to ND.

I think a good illustration may be rock-n-roll. Any trained musician will tell you rock-n-roll is sophomoric, crap music. But when I'm going to a show at Blossom (or at the future Akron Arena), do I care that rock-n-roll is easy to play? No! I want to rock out.So it is with a marching band. We're at a friggin' football game. We want adrenaline. We don't want Schubert.

Wow. It sounds like our band needs an entire change in mindset, or "culture" and that's a problem that runs very deep. It sounds like the band needs a new director to gradually (or not so gradually) instill a different personality amongst the group.Anyway, band members, please know that no one is picking on the band. I just think that everyone on this board has a passion for the University of Akron and desperately wants to see it represented in a grand fashion. Most of us grew weary of UA's half-baked view of themselves long ago. That's part of our collective frustration - when it comes to UA, oftentimes the small-time mindset is internal - almost as if we ZipsNation fans have bigger dreams for the university than even the university does. (That's why Proenza is a demi-god in our eyes.)On a different note, I like the idea of bringing back the big tire drum. Purdue has their big drum, maybe we could have ours as well?Purdue's Big Drum

The MAC may have been playing the heavy for us on this one. I'm sure that we weren't too thrilled about the match up when we learned that the W wouldn't count toward our win total.With the MAC "forcing" us to drop the game, it may have been a way for us to maintain a friendly relationship with South Dakota by saying that the decision was taken out of our hands?

Though it's a no-brainer to even mention this, it would be fantasic if Goodyear would fly the blimp over the Info on gamedays.