David Almeda, Sentinel Staff Writer
During a typical college football Saturday, the fan experience runs much deeper than the action that takes place on the gridiron. To many fans, the tailgating experience before the game is part of what gives college football its distinctive feel. This fall, Kennesaw State will establish its new football team not only with the playing of a new sport, but with the college football tailgating experience.
During the spring game that took place several months ago, KSU’s athletic department was able to find out what worked and what didn’t. The preliminary requirement to set up a tailgate before KSU football games will be a parking pass.
“We have the green lot, which is our student lot, which is the back part of the old BrandsMart building,” KSU associate athletic director Katie Egloff said. “The students will be going through a lottery system to acquire an actual parking pass.”
The passes, like tickets, will be available through OwlLife and will be picked up at the Convocation Center in the week before the game. However, the lottery system will not be what determines who actually gets to tailgate. Anyone who can get to the lot can join in.
“We’ve really tried to stress that that’s just a parking pass,” Egloff said. “It’s not keeping any students from being able to tailgate. If someone in your group is able to get a car the whole group is able to. Anyone can walk in.”
One of the ways that KSU will provide access to students without parking passes is through its BOB shuttle system, which will run on game days. The system will run five hours prior to the games, giving more attendees access to pregame festivities. The system will also run during the game and for two hours afterwards.
“We have multiple BOB routes,” Egloff said. “We will have a route to the Marietta campus to make sure they have an option. We have an on-campus route which will go through the core of Kennesaw campus.”
There will be also be routes that service some other off- campus housing areas that are deemed too far to walk from, such as West 22.
In terms of the actual tailgating experience, KSU’s athletic department is teaming with student life to help bring tailgating zones to registered student organizations. During the spring game, zones for organizations were handed out on a first come, first serve basis. Because of lessons learned from the spring game’s trial run and new circumstances, the options on how to handle zones during actual games are still being weighed.
“There have been facility changes to the area that we were not aware of, so now we’re trying to figure out what the best options are for those RSOs,” Egloff said. “Student life is going to be the primary point of contact for those.”
“We know that’s a big want on campus,” KSU director of marketing and fan experience Brandy Chenoweth said. “We’re still fine tuning it. We found out a lot of things at the spring game.”
At the end of it all, the goal for KSU’s athletic department is to create an experience that can live up to being a college football Saturday in the South.
“We’ve worked really hard to create game day atmosphere for Kennesaw,” Chenoweth said. “It’s not an easy thing to create in a suburb of Atlanta. It’s not Athens, it’s not Tuscaloosa, you don’t see flags flying everywhere. That’s that atmosphere we’re trying to create.”
