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For someone who has followed every aspect of this program for 20 years, there are moments that will always stand out that remind you how far UCF has come. Tonight was one of those nights. I've been to every fan day since 1998 with obviously the first few of those taking place downtown at the Citrus Bowl.
In the early days, they actually combined media day, fan day and photo day into one simultaneous event. I have some photos from early events, not many, but I'm not sure there was ever more than a few hundred fans. Obviously the event has grown exponentially with the on-campus stadium and especially over the last few years.
I had a feeling this year's Fan Fest was going to be crazy and it certainly was, despite the lack of heavy promotion by UCFAA. And that was by design. Promotion wasn't necessary as it really was "too big" even without it.
I know people were disappointed that it wasn't feasible to get autographs from every player, but I'm not sure what you can do when thousands converged on the event. The crowd was so massive, I'm not even sure I can estimate what it was. In the video above, the first three minutes basically show the line waiting to get inside at around 6:15 and that's not even including the people milling around in other areas or who showed up after the event already started. It was incredibly difficult just to even move within the concourse.
I have to applaud the players for being real troupers with the majority going out of their way to put on a good face and interact with as many people as possible. In years past, I'd take a mental note of maybe the 5-6 players who were super friendly and excited about interacting with kids, etc., but I lost track of it this year. The majority I saw were great and that enthusiasm didn't trail off either.
The event was supposed to end at 8, and I know some people said players left at that time, but from where I was, I saw guys like Dredrick Snelson, Cam Stewart and many members of the offensive line who refused to leave while there were still people waiting in line. That was just from my vantage point at that time.
Obviously there are a lot of schools with great fanbases, but I'd have to think this fan day crowd stacked up with the best of them.
I know Fan Day is a kid friendly event so that obviously equals more kids, but it does put things into perspective just how young this fanbase is - you see the hordes of 20, 30 and 40-somethings with their kids/teenagers in tow and it dawns on you how that's going to translate (and has been translating) to the overall growth of the fanbase, especially in these last 10 years.
Anyway, great event. I did my best to document everything I could both in the video and photos.
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