ATHENS, Ga. – One of the changes new Georgia athletics director Greg McGarity hopes to make is to cut out some of the "canned music" at Sanford Stadium and create a more “traditional” atmosphere for Bulldog football games.
“So many institutions, I think, maybe go overboard in all this pre-programmed music,” McGarity said. “I’m pretty much a traditionalist, a conservative. If the band’s there, I want to hear the band playing. I think our fans do too.”
UGA does control the “atmosphere from an electronic standpoint,” McGarity said.
The issue was raised by a student representative during today’s Athletics Association meeting on campus, carrying a suggestion from UGA’s student body that certain announcements on the scoreboard be timed better to not impact the team’s momentum or detract from the atmosphere at key moments during games.
McGarity, who had been approached previously, agreed with that assessment. He used the public service announcements as an example, but said his ideas “are just tweaks. It’s not reinventing the wheel here.”
“But it’s something I’m going to start paying attention to a little bit more now that I’m getting used to a lot of things,” McGarity said, “as far as, ‘How is the event presented?’ … Some schools just will wear you out. It’s so loud and annoying, you say, ‘Well, am I at a pro game or am I at a college game?’ I would like to see it run in a more traditional way. I guess it’s just probably being respectful to the college game instead of maybe veering off to the pro approach.”
- Gentry Estes
- Georgia Insider - Dawgs247