May 20, 2008
Note to Vandy: Upgrade Dudley’s seats, please!
I’m pleased to learn that Vanderbilt University is announcing plans today for renovations and upgrades to Dudley Field, Memorial Gym and Hawkins Field. Improvements to Dudley Field, in particular, are long overdue. The rendering published in today’s Tennessean (above) showcases some appealing aesthetic changes to the stadium facade, but I think what’s needed most is a change in stadium seating. I’d love to see the university exchange 3,000 to 5,000 seats of capacity in the current minimalist metal bleachers for folding plastic chairs common at more modern sporting venues. Short of razing the stadium to the ground and exorcising its many gridiron demons before starting over from scratch, this would be a welcome upgrade for Commodore football fans.
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Jack said,
May 20, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
I went to Alabama’s stadium two years ago and there were not a lot of chair back seats there either and something you don’t think about is the size of fans that might attend games. A lot of the new stadiums that have chair back seats, do the cookie cutter chairs that are the size of a 165 pound man most of the time. Well, in the south, there’s a good portion of people who are well over that size and if you go to Vanderbilt on any Saturday in the fall, you will see several of those people sitting in the stands. While it would be nice to get more back support for the seating, the folding plastic chairs are not always the best for ALL the fans, so I don’t think that’s a great solution.
Rob Robinson said,
May 20, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
You make a good point about the size of some fans who attend games. The folding chairs approach seems to work at Titans and Preds games, though. I would settle for back support for all the sections, and it would be nice to have a material more forgiving than metal.