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Insights and Observations
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Henry's Highlights
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
By Henry Hinton |
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Purple Army is on the move
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There will be no pipers
piping or geese alaying in Birmingham this weekend, but The 12 Days of
Christmas have been filled with lots of other exciting things as the
East Carolina athletic staff prepares for a big weekend at the
Papajohns.com Bowl.
Skip Holtz has been busy
getting his team ready to face South Florida in the 1 p.m. (Eastern Time)
kickoff at Legion Field. But preparing the team is only part of what goes
into getting a program ready for a bowl.
Getting everything needed
for the team and travel party from Greenville to Birmingham has been more
like moving a small army, according to ECU Associate Director of Athletics
Lee Workman.
Ever wonder what goes
into getting ECU to a bowl game? Workman, the department’s point man on the
project, talked about it Tuesday on Talk 1070’s Talk of the Town program.
How about one charter
plane, two equipment trucks, eight bowl events, 12 buses, 30 meals, 230
hotel rooms, 710 hotel room nights, 450 people, 500 media guides, 600 pieces
of luggage, 7,000 tickets, one cannon and 25 days of a hard charging
athletic staff working together to pull it all off?
That’s all?
Well, not quite. As part
of it all there will be some drummers drumming (band) and ladies dancing
(cheerleaders).
And, oh, by the way,
quite a few Pirate fans as well.
Workman says more than
6,500 tickets have been sold at ECU and there should be at least 6,800 by
week’s end from the Pirate allotment.
There has been an ongoing
debate about how many tickets sold would be an impressive amount to the
college football world.
Workman says this is a
much better investment by Pirate fans than East Carolina’s most recent two
bowl trips (Mobile 2001 and Houston 2000).
"6,800 tickets for a
pre-Christmas bowl is great for anybody,” Workman says. “There are not a lot
of schools selling 6,800 for a game before Christmas unless it’s right next
door to them. We’re ten hours away driving from here. That’s a phenomenal
number for the Saturday before Christmas.”
He also believes there
will be more ECU fans in Legion Field than that number in spite of the fact
that many people have bought tickets and will not actually attend.
“We will sell a few more
as the week goes on,” said Workman. “By the time you take what’s been sold
and add our player families, the band and folks that live in that Alabama,
Georgia, Mississippi area that didn’t buy here but bought there, I think
we’ll have 7,000-8,000 people on Saturday, which will be a tremendous
showing.”
In addition, Conference
USA is providing free tickets to area Birmingham children’s organizations.
People are given a free ticket and a purple t-shirt to wear to the game,
creating some instant ECU fans from the Alabama region.
Talk 1070 has announced
its bowl coverage for the week, which will include a live morning show from
6:30-9:00 a.m. Friday from the Winfrey Hotel, the Pirate team hotel.
Scheduled to appear are
Anne Holland, Jennifer Holtz, Greenville Mayor Don Parrott, Bonesville
writer Denny O’Brien, and former ECU Media Relations Director Norm Reilly,
who is now at UAB. Reilly is the bowl media coordinator.
Other special guests who
may stop by and have a cup of coffee with the 1070 morning crew. Since we’re
in the team hotel, who knows who will stop by.
A complete listing of all
programs airing live from Birmingham on Talk 1070 is now available at
www.talk1070.com.
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Henry Hinton.
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This page updated
04/21/08 07:08 PM.
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