Fan Day 2007

On Saturday August 25th the University of Michigan football team held their annual Fan Day at Michigan Stadium where fans get the opportunity to meet with the team, get pictures and autographs. This event continues to grow and grow year after year and after it was moved to the weekend a few years ago the crowds have gotten so large that you have to arrive early and you should plan on only meeting one marquee player. I attended the event as a fan, it was fun to take a day off and to just be a fan again. I arrived outside Michigan stadium at 8 AM, and was let into the stadium at 8:30 and made my way towards Lloyd Carr's line. An hour later, at 9:30 Carr and the team arrived and the 90 minutes of photo taking and autograph seeking began. All I wanted was a picture with Carr and I think this is a historic moment that we are lucky to have documented; Lloyd actually smiling.

After that I really took the rest of the time exploring the old Stadium that will change forever after this season. I added some photos of myself to my collection with some of the more famous parts of the stadium, places I have past many times before, but never thought of getting a picture. And besides the lines and crowds were huge. The photo to the left shows the line to meet Chad Henne. I ventured into the Stadium to find my seats for the year and found a nice surprise, the stadium scoreboards have received a face lift. At the bottom where the shifting panels used to be is now a strip of LEDs, the numbers are also LED and the jumbo-tron is now crystal clear as illustrated by the photo below.

I'll leave you with a few more photos, including Chad and Mike meeting with the fans. I know UM is doing their best when it comes to this event but there is just not enough time for everyone to meet with the players, I heard stories that a few people got in a line and never even got to meet a single player. I'm not really sure how you can correct it though. Obviously Michigan football has a large following and thousands will show up for these events. Some would suggest increasing the time which I agree with, perhaps bump it up from 90 minutes to 120, giving two full hours. However, even with this increase some fans are not going to be able to meet all of their favorite players, they would have to be there all day and we can't expect that out of the players or the coaches. So my advice for next year is to pick out the one player you absolutely must meet and get to Michigan Stadium early!!

Less than a week away...