Big 10 Football Tour

There's something to be said about the lure of historic stadiums such as Fenway Park and Wrigely Field, but we'll leave that to you to say because some of these new stadiums are just freakin' cool!

Among the grand opening, among the undefeated position that the Gophers were undefeated, among the fact the a top ten ranked school (California Golden Bears) were coming to town, the Minnesota front office offered us a private tour of the brand new stadium on Friday before the game!  I mean, are you kidding us?  This staff was probably working 20 hour days for the last two weeks and they made time before going home to their families to show us around the stadium.  WOW!

Our first stop was on the actual playing field.  To our surprise, there wasn't natural grass growing - it was field turf.   Now this isn't the kind of turf you see players injuring themselves on in the 1990's in such venues as the Kingdom (Seattle) or the Astrodome (Houston).  Apparently, it was a consensus among the athletes to use the field turf.  One would assume that once the colder months come around, caring for the grass in Minnesota would become a chore.  You may notice in the photo below that many of the seats have chair-backs on them. We're told that season ticket holders can elect to have these installed on their seats prior to the season's start as such seats are not allowed to be brought into the stadium.

Our first question, "Why only 50,000 seats...because it seems that Minnesota football is about to become a big deal?"  No worries, this thing has the capability to expand to 80,000 we're told.

Next we took a quick stop in the press-conference room and continued on.  Throughout the halls, we noticed a lot of movement as everyone was preparing for the big game the next day.  The band was conducting practice.  Deliveries were being made, people were stopping by to discuss everything from sponsorships to tickets.  Of course the staff was making final preparations as well - it's not everyday that a non-conference top ten team comes to town (unless you're Ohio).

Another interesting stop was the "Recruit room."  We're told that we recruits visited Minnesota in the past, we hung out in a few tents outside the Metrodome as they discussed coming to play for the Gophers.  Now the school has a room dedicated to recruits decorated with the jerseys of many NFL players who attended Minnesota including Marion Barber, Lawrence Maroney, and Tony Dungy!  We think it's safe to say that Minnesota will be pulling in a lot more recruits in the future.  This of course is a bit different from the hockey team, which attempts to use exclusively Minnesota-born players on the team.

So our next stop was easily our most memorable.  Our guide aked us, "So have you heard about our locker room?"  Since we've been spending the last two months building a blog, planning, working, and more, we had not had the opportunity to read up on it and we replied, "No."  Our guide then said, "Ok, well I'm not going to say anything...just walk around that corner..."  And we did.  What we saw next was one of the most magnificent views in all of sports.  We were staring right into the largest locker room in college football...in the NFL...in the world.  60 yards long and 25 yards wide.  Heck, they could play arena football in here!  It is shaped like what else...a football.  We believe we were told it houses 120 lockers made of cherry-wood (not to be confused with strawberry wood).  Possibly our favorite part was the large "M" in the center which would change colors every so often and apparently can illuminate to every color in the rainbow.  Of course, they remind the Gophers of great players of Minnesota-past with some retired lockers.

Before seeing some more of the impressive inside areas of TCF Bank Stadium, we took another stroll outside.  As you may have read elsewhere in the blog, Drew has a real affinity for skyscrapers, so he needed to take a look at the skyline in the distance.  The scoreboard shown is said to be the 3rd largest outdoor scoreboard in all of college football, trailing Texas and Mississippi State.  If you think this view beats the Metrodome, just wait until you see the view of the new Target Field, opening in the spring of 2010.

In recent news, TCF Bank stadium became the 1st facility among both the professional and collegiate ranks to become LEED certified, meaning that all of the tree-huggers can attend a game and feel good about being there.

While you likely can't appreciate it from the photos, it was at this time that we really gave this facility our stamp of approval.  We were standing by the furthest seat from the field...and the view was just phenomenal!  Not a bad seat in this house!

Next we made our way up to the loge/suite/press levels.  Here, we learned about the rules governing alcohol service at TCF Bank Stadium.  To summarize, you can't buy alcohol at TCF Bank Stadium.  The facility is now on-campus (the Metrodome was not), so things get a little complicated.  The loss of alcohol sales will clearly cost the school lots of revenue. 

Moving on, Minnesota fans will recognize some familiar words on their chair-backs as walking through this level.  It was also in this area that we began to notice an extraordinary amount of "M's" through the facility.  We were told that there are over 9,000 "M's" throughout the stadium.  Next, we passed through the suites (all equipped with TV's) and the press level.

Another memorable moment was when we had the opportunity to go in the "television room."  We passed through a curtain and were suddenly on the set of ESPN's College Gameday.  Now the photos you see on the side weren't just a photo taken and the ESPN set added to the background like you'd get in your high school pictures.  These were LIVE photos from the monitors.  Jeff stood in Bob Greise's spot while Drew was in Chris Spielman's place.   Each member had a piece of tape on the floor with their name on it, designating where they stand.

Next we moved on to another club room and then to the Presidential Suite.  Here, we saw a comemorative photo of the old Memorial Stadium.  One thing we also noticed here were several glass bins of gold nuggets.  We thought about selling a few & becoming millionaires, but we decided they were best kept at TCF Bank Stadium.

In what could be an overlooked aspect of TCF Bank Stadium, a brick wall is shown below.  Our understanding is that this was a last minute additional as the university received a large donation ($500 thousand) from an unidentified donor.

Our final stop was on the concourse.  It was extremely spacious and had views of the field even when a fan was purchasing concessions.  This was a welcome sight after spending the previous two weeks maneuvering through the concourses.

We can't thank the Minnesota staff enough for taking the time out of what must have been an extremely busy schedule to show us around what will clearly become one of the favorite stadiums of college football.