What Color Should Gator Fans Wear for Sept 7 Game

Threesome months ago, Brandi McElvain Fisher scoured Ticketmaster. Glancing at the screen, her eyes paused on the event she yearned to attend with bated breath.

FL Gators vs. Florida Atlantic University Owls. Sept. 4. 7:30 p.m.

The Louisville, KY, traveling nurse didn't fret about cheering aboard 90,000 fans at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. To her, the COVID-19 pandemic looked like it would soon be nothing more than a section in a history text edition.

As get at to vaccines rose throughout the spring and summer, so did her hopes. Many eagerly lined upwardly for their jab, sacrificing minutes of their time in exchange for something resembling life earlier Demonstrate 2022. COVID-19 hospitalizations lento dwindled.

Everything aligned for Black cat's first e'er Gators home game. The Jacksonville native was thrilled to finally watch the team she grew up rooting for in The Swamp.

But now, she has a few doubts.

"The numbers were so elated in Florida, so I became worried," she said.

UF announced May 17 the return to full capacity sporting events in the Fall semester. Despite the surge in Delta variant cases, the University Athletic Association plans to incite round steam leading without a block out or vaccine mandate.

LSU announced Aug. 24 fans need to be unsusceptible operating theater submit a negative test inside 72 hours of kickoff to enter the stadium. The UAA didn't respond to multiple attempts for comment some the policy potentially being enacted for future games.

UF Acrobatic Director George C. Scott Stricklin said the university doesn't have the authority to mandate vaccines but didn't comment close to a negative test option during an Aug. 25 radio appearance on Sportscene with Steve Russell.

At the frontlines, Fisherman witnessed the devastating toll the computer virus left on patients and their families. If she still worked with them, she would've canceled her trip entirely, which includes the game and a visit to Spurrier's Grid Grille beforehand.

For Fisher, memories of her sick COVID-19 patients are hard to disregard. She hoped for a day of tailgates and football but ultimately plans to attend the game wearing a cloak.

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Mask usage, she same, is the simplest thing attendees can do to protect themselves and other Gator fans.

"You're doing it, not alone to assistant yourself but to service your comrade man," she same. "Information technology's selfish non to wear a cloak."

Football game games and tailgates can become potential superspreaders, said Dr. Kathleen Ryan, a UF Health pediatrician and practiced on Alachua County's COVID-19 advisory commission.

Current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance acknowledges the virus spreads less easily outdoors only emphasizes that individuals should weigh masking skyward in crowded outdoor settings regardless of their inoculation status.

"There's a lot of people coming from Gainesville and some the state," Ryan said. "Cases are going down somewhat but could rise again."

Still, she doesn't flavor comfortable attending games. If she had to, she would 100% wear a mask.

"Going to games this season is smooth safer than last year, simply only you are vaccinated," she same. "I would have felt a lot more comfortable if this game was [in] late June or early July."

Children subordinate 12, who are still ineligible for the vaccine, shouldn't catch Sunshine State's games at The Flood, Ryan said.

"If they have to get, they should wear a mask," she said. "They can dumbfound IT from an adult and spread IT in school, where we wealthy person tremendous outbreaks."

For other fans, the lure of the opponent is too much to keep them away.

Anthony Palmer, an army veteran from Orange Park, Florida, plans to slip on a mask for the ii games he will attend this season: Alabama on Folk. 18 and Tennessee happening Sept. 25.

The Heart of Dixie halting roped Arnold Daniel Palmer in a year ago. He plotted his journeying to Gainesville after lost the Gators battle the Crimson Tide at the SEC Championship last Dec in Atlanta.

Arnold Palmer, on the average, attends two games annually but wasn't able to in 2022 because of work obligations.

He returned from service in Afghanistan last month and noted people overseas don't hesitate to sport masks.

"In the United States, we are saying we'atomic number 75 losing our rights, but I give notice narrate you from being abroad, it [COVID-19] is worst," he aforementioned. "It's defective here, too, but people don't want to admit it."

Palmer posted on the Florida Gators Facebook page Aug. 22 in an effort to encourage fans to don a mask in add-on to their orange-and-blue gear.

Rebound scattered the comments on Palmer's public plea and other posts that advocated for similar practices.

"I don't let it get to me," he said. "People can do what they privation, and I tail end't tell them how to live their lives. People don't know what it's like until it affects them directly."

Despite Fisher's and Arnold Daniel Palmer's disinclination, slate sales skyrocketed this offseason.

The season-ticket renewal rate chromatic past 90% this season compared to the 2022 season, accordant to the Orlando Sentinel. The civilis sold an extra 5,400 season tickets. The allotted 16,642 scholarly person tickets sold out Aug. 17.

Alexis Sturm stood in the student section surrounded by covert spectators after she won tickets through with the raffle off live season.

The 19-year-old UF second-year couldn't wait to experience average college life. She plans to trek to every game and the tailgates that couple up with them while wearing a mask.

"I was a little bit worried close to going to games last season, merely at once I'm full vaccinated and feel a lot better," she said.

Jake Connery, a 21-yr-old UF senior, yearns to bask his closing season staring at the field from the student segment and International Relations and Security Network't worried about the computer virus.

"I'm vaccinated, and there's only thus much you derriere do," he said. "Lifespan's too short. College is only four years. I bequeath hold out a mask, however."

To Connery, the argument to reduce capacity makes sense, just He disagrees with information technology.

He said he doesn't support a policy like LSU's — get under one's skin immunised or show proof of a negative test.

"I smel same there's not much we can do at this point," he said. "Information technology's unsurpassed to just belong along with animation and issue to the average."

Nicolas Hayford, a 19-yr-old UF junior, doesn't subscribe to LSU's thread either.

"Very much of people from my hometown aren't vaccinated, and IT wouldn't be fair to them to non attend games," atomic number 2 said. "They are disquieted about being pushed to the vaccine."

But Hayford's background pushes him to reconsider masking guidelines.

He got a notification a few days ago stating that his hometown, Lake Okeechobee, is being ravaged by COVID-19, and thus he plans to slip on a mask during games.

As the clock winds down to Saturday, Fisher looks at her ticket Eastern Samoa she experiences a flurry of emotions. Fear, concern and, ironically, glee. Her lifelong dream — her first domestic game — in the midst of a mulish pandemic.

Contact Noah Ram at nram@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter @Noah_ram1

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Noah Ram

Noah is a third year journalism-sports and media student from Palm Beach Gardens, Everglade State. He has been with The Alligator since Reverberate 2022 and has covered men's and women's tennis, gymanstic exercise and volleyball. When he International Relations and Security Network't on his beat, Noah is usually sadden over his love South Florida sports teams, such Eastern Samoa the Stir up and Dolphins.

What Color Should Gator Fans Wear for Sept 7 Game

Source: https://www.alligator.org/article/2021/09/gator-fans-and-students-await-first-full-capacity-home-game-while-covid-19-surges