By HuskerLocker
By Brian Towle
The moving of Fan Day to a Friday afternoon is causing quite a stir across Husker Nation. In the past, the Nebraska football program has welcomed fans onto the playing surface of Memorial Stadium on Saturday afternoons for interaction with players and coaches.
That's now been changed to a weekday afternoon. This is bringing up valid complaints from fans of all ages. It’s a family day to bring mom, dad and the kids to the Stadium to get autographs while having fun on the field.
Moving the event to a Friday throws a wrench into the plans of those who must work that day and shrinks the crowd that has obligated commitments forcing them to either sacrifice time at work or missing the event altogether. This also won’t allow a number of families to continue an important tradition for them. It’s understandable why the university did this, but it’s not a good deviation.
The day’s move gives the team a chance to have meetings and take care of necessities like equipment checkout. However, the fact remains that not only will attendance be hurt, there are and will be a lot of fans that are already extremely disappointed with their inability to partake in the festivities due to the rescheduling.
Surely, there are kids that can't wait to run around the field, throw a football back and forth with their parents and having exceptional stories to share with their friends at school. Now that isn’t happening. Both kids and adults see these Cornhuskers every week on television and wish that they could say hello, get their autograph, give a kind word or get a snapshot so they can put it up on their fridge or on Facebook.
Wouldn’t it have made more sense to hold the event during the evening if movement to Friday was necessary? Not only would that help eliminate work schedule issues, but holding it in the evening would also help deal with the insufferable Nebraskan summer heat.
The question remains: Why reschedule Fan Day from Saturday in the first place regardless of start time? With an event like this, a day that helps the fans put a face and personality to a jersey number, it would seem that sacrificing one Friday night or Saturday to appease the fans isn’t much to ask.