O-Dome Crowds

Posted Jan 8, 2007 by Bill Ward

Updated Jan 9, 2007 at 11:01 AM

Gainesville, 5 p.m. —At the 12,000-seat O’Connell Center, where the official UF viewing of the game will take place, long lines began forming early. The doors don’t open until 6:30 p.m. but Justin Gromley, Gio Barroso and Kevin Lam showed up to be first in line at 12:30 p.m. The quickly ordered a pizza to be delivered to their spot on the southeast corner of the O-Dome and they finished it off in minutes. By 5 o’clock, they were hungry again but the line stretched all the way to the commuter parking lot and there was no way they were going to eat another pizza without having to share. On the northwest side of the O_Dome, the lines were even longer. Maybe that’s because of all the TV satellite trucks parked there with their talking heads doing live broadcasts from that spot. Every time a camera started rolling, the crowd broke into Gator chants and cheers. Funny what a camera will do to otherwise sane people.