Knight fans should take some notes
Guest Column by Robert Aronoff (@2Letters2words)
For a School in the home of hospitality, UCF fans could take a clue from some of the Big XII schools in terms of how they treat visiting fans.
Last season I went to five UCF football away games, with four of those games being Big XII schools. While UCF had a rough time on the field in many of these games, as a fan, I had a great experience interacting with other fans, observing their traditions and experiencing the games in the visitors’ stadiums. In this column, I want to cover some of these positive experiences and the lessons that we can take from them as we welcome visitors into the Bounce House in 2024. While I recognize that not every fan will have the same experience on the road, and that there are always pockets of fans that can ruin an individual experience, I still think we can take the best of what we learned to make UCF a more hospitable place moving forward.
UCF at Boise State – September 9, 2023
The first road trip last year was the furthest away game for the Knights to open the road campaign. While there is no way around that fact that getting in and out of western Idaho isn’t easy, I have to say that I was very pleased once I got there.
For this trip, I didn’t spend much time on campus, but I did spend a good amount of time in rideshare vehicles, as well as local bars and restaurants in the downtown area. What I found was a town full of people that were warm and welcoming. What was different here from all the other road trips was that many of the locals that I encountered didn’t even know that there was a game that weekend. They were there to work, live their lives and enjoy their weekend. They weren’t going out of their way to be nice to a visiting football fan, but they were just nice people being themselves. I also have to mention that the restaurants, pubs and taverns that I visited were a cool mix of hip, fun and kitschy places.
UCF at Kansas State – September 23, 2023
This road trip was the Knights first road trip to a Big XII school. This game amplified the difference between this legacy Big XII school and one of the newcomers. Kansas State University was founded literally 100 years before UCF, back in 1863.
While there is a huge age difference between the two institutions, there was no “big brother” vibes coming from them or looking down on us or our program. Instead, I found a welcoming fan base that went out of their way to be nice. In fact, the one thing that sticks with me to this day is that during my time wandering through the KSU tailgates and inside the stadium, was how often people would approach me and thank me for coming to Manhattan for the game. They were truly grateful to have visitors and visiting dollars come to town. In fact, while visiting the Manhattan Brewery Company, KSU fans actually sent over beers to our table, and thanked us for visiting.
UCF at Kansas – October 7, 2023
The first game of October had UCF traveling back to the sunflower state for a contest against the Jayhawks in Lawrence. The visit to the KU campus was amazing. I and my traveling partner roamed around the campus and may have even snuck into the legendary Allen Fieldhouse, where KU packs the house for basketball games.
While the campus and the facilities (other than the actual football stadium) were impressive, what was even more impressive was the way we were received as visitors. Like Manhattan, Lawrence is a place where the town is more an extension of the campus than a place with a separate identity. In fact, visiting the downtown main streets in both Kansas towns, you see small shops with window displays that were themed for the game and supportive of the local team. At times it felt like I was transported to the 1950s on a Friday afternoon before the big high school game. It culminated in the cutest vibe that came off as wholesome and welcoming. Like KSU, KU fans greeted me warmly in local restaurants and bars, engaged in great fan base exchanges and bought us drinks.
*Note: The only inhospitable thing about KU was the section of the stadium where the seats were 20 yards behind the end zone and didn’t face the field. I think it should be a criminal act to even sell such seats.
UCF at Oklahoma – October 21, 2023
Of all the road trips I took this season, I spent less time in Norman than any other place. With it being only a few hours from Dallas, where I live, I drove up that morning and drove home after the game. While my time in Norman was short, I still engaged with plenty of fans at a local restaurant, tailgates and the stadium. Like the other road trips, locals in the restaurant were welcoming and engaging. In and around the stadium, the fans and institutions showed off their pride in their program and its history, without looking down on anyone. The OU fans sitting next to me had only complimentary things to say about UCF from kickoff to the last whistle. I also talked with another UCF fan who was there with her daughter and was treated to a surprise big upgrade in seating from a booster that had extra seats in a prime location from someone they had just met at the stadium.
UCF at Texas Tech – November 18, 2023
I have a standing theory about the state of Texas. As you move across the state from East to West, the people get nicer. It’s often said that if you spend a week in Lubbock and nobody has brought you a pie, that some local is going to get in trouble. While this is certainly an exaggeration, it’s not far from the truth. For an isolated town on a West Texas cap rock, Lubbock has a cool collection of bars, restaurants and hangouts. Sure, I went to the Buddy Holly museum and that was the extent of my tourism in Lubbock, but what made the trip great was all the cool people I interacted with, including those that introduced me and my travel companions to local traditions, local drinks and even local drinking games.
Takeaways
While my experiences in all of these towns were different, they all had something in common. They were filled with townspeople and fans that showed great pride in their teams, as well as pride in how they treated visiting fans.
My hope is that UCF fans can take something away from these observations that I think needs to be stressed. Primarily, I hope that UCF fans will be mindful in trying to live up to the reputation of a place that is reliant on tourism and treating visitors well. This should certainly happen when we meet people in the stands, around the stadium and local businesses near campus, but it should also extend to how we treat other fans on social media. I cringe when I see UCF fans look down upon these small towns that are part of the Big XII, referring to them as “truck stop towns” or deriding them for not having the tourist amenities that UCF is blessed to have in its back yard. Manhattan, Lawrence and Lubbock will never have Disney, Universal Studios, or fancy resorts/attractions, but they have something that can’t be artificially created. They have a quaint, home town niceness and a genuinely good spirit that makes people like them and feel good about returning there. Lastly, if you are not making these road trips because they are in out of the way places that don’t have what we have in Orlando, then you are missing out on a big part of the beautiful tapestry of college football and its wonderful history.
Spot on great column! I think we were sitting with you and a certain Sons personality when that Manhattan local bought our table the local pub brew crafted in honor of their favorite hometown team. I’ve experienced K-State fans now twice, the other time in 2010. Their good fans were the deciding factor in going on a second road game after the primary road game was pre-planned. Your assessment of OU fans were also spot on. We could learn a lot of lessons from mid west fan hospitality. It is NOT against the law to be nice to visiting fans. You (reader) are not disloyal to your team or a bad fan for being good to your guests. If you think repping your team is ripping your visitors, that is a disturbing statement about you more than your loyalty to UCF! There are destinations I’ve visited on a UCF road game trip that I will never go back to for that exact behavior (I.e., Pittsburgh). Manhatten, KS is a place I will return to because of their fans!