Jordan-Hare question.....

Been a lot of places in this country....never been to Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Have to cover a game there Saturday.
Tips, please?

 

Take Wire Road to the stadium instead of the other two options.

Afterward, particularly after night games, prepare for unbelievable traffic.

 

Get two or three cookies and stuff them in your bag for the post-game traffic.

 

And it's pronounced "Jurdan"-Hare Stadium, not like the name of the guy inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last week.

 

Avoid the partying that spills into the Toomer's Corner intersection if you're trying to drive back to your hotel after the game, especially after an Auburn victory. It'll take you a long, long time time to get through. On the other hand, if you're off deadline and you're looking for a place to drink, Toomer's Corner would be fine, just fine.

Also, depending on who the visiting team is, if you're on the field at the end of the game, waiting to get into the locker room, there is a good chance you'll have Jack Daniels bottles whizzing past your head, thrown from the stands onto the field.

I offer both tidbits with a 20-year-old disclaimer ... I experienced both scenarios while covering Florida in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (Of course, these things may have happened *just because* the other team was Florida.) Any similarity between then and now may be entirely coincidental. Haven't been back to Auburn since then, but both experiences have stuck in my memory.

Good luck.

P.S. -- And pronounce it "Jerr-den" instead of "Jorr-dan" ... lest you be pelted with rocks and bottles. But I think most folks know that one.

 

Great stadium, great place to see a game.

I've been there twice. Both times for night games and both times it took hours and hours to get out of there. It was pretty brutal.

 

Among the three-worst traffic situations in FBC history. You may think that, two hours after the game when finished writing your eight stories and 30 Tweets, that it may lighten up. Then it takes you 30 minutes to get a half-mile away from your parking space.

RB

 

What are the other two, RB?

 

Traffic is awful, but not that bad compared to my experiences at Ole Miss. This is partly due to the layout of the town. If Mayberry played major Division I football, it would be called Auburn.

But Jordan-Hare is a great place to see a game. The media relations staff does a good job, in my opinion. You'll also get fed a good meal before the game and hotdogs at halftime.

As for the whiskey bottles, that can be said about every SEC stadium except maybe Vanderbilt. The good news is this week's game is a 6:45 kickoff. So if you're spending the night, there's lots of fun to be had after the game. There's some pretty damn good bars in that little town.

 

UCLA in the Rose Bowl has got to be one of them.

 

South Carolina, with only one way in and one way out, is pretty brutal.

 

Oxford, Miss., and the former Orange Bowl -- the latter more for the extreme lack of parking.

Auburn's traffic situation is like another Dixie destination ... Talladega. Grrrrrr.

RB