Welcome to TBO.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online

Welcome to Thinking Out Loud, a blog that contains postings from The Tampa Tribune’s Editorial Board and from various Tribune Community Columnists. Unlike the unsigned editorials that represent the newspaper’s institutional voice, the blog postings offer personal perspectives on the issues, personalities and events of Tampa Bay. We invite you to participate by posting your comments. We’ll do our best to respond.

Contributors:

Joe Guidry

Joe Guidry is the deputy editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune. He is a Tampa native and a graduate of the University of South Florida. He is married and has an adult son.

Jeff Stidham

Jeff Stidham grew up and lives in Bartow. He has been with the Tribune for nearly 22 years, the last 10 on the editorial board.

William Yelverton

William Yelverton is a Tribune editorial writer who has worked for the paper nearly 22 years. He lives in the Dade City area.

Jim Beamguard

Jim Beamguard is a Tribune editorial writer. He is a native of North Carolina and a graduate of Davidson College. He and his family live in Brandon.

Jackie Papandrew:

Jackie Papandrew is a freelance writer and editor. Her syndicated humor column appears in publications in the United States, Canada and India. She lives in Largo with her husband and children. Visit her website at www.jackiepapandrew.com.

Camille Beredjick

Camille Beredjick is a senior at Chamberlain High School, an avid musician and a scribbler with a quirky sense of humor. In the fall, she will be attending Northwestern University to study journalism, political science and music, and she plans to pursue a career in journalism.

Jim Harnish

Jim Harnish is in his 17th year as Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa. He and his wife, Marsha, have two daughters and two grandchildren. He is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary and received the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bethune-Cookman University. He is the author of six books and numerous articles and studies. He enjoys playing with his grandchildren and cheering for the Florida Gators.

Angela Hunt

Angela Hunt is a novelist living in Pinellas County with her husband and two 220-pound mastiffs.

Sheryl Young

Sheryl Young was a Tampa Tribune Community Columnist in 2005-2006. A freelance writer since 1997, including the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Tampa Style Magazines, St. Pete Times and nationally in Better Nutrition, Today’s Christian Woman and more. She’s received a First Place Amy Foundation national "Roaring Lambs" Writing Award, and has lived in Tampa Bay with her family for over 20 years.

Christie Gold

Christie Gold teaches English and journalism at Freedom High School in Tampa where she advises Revolution, the school newspaper. She has been both the Hillsborough County Teacher of the Year and Florida Journalism Teacher of the Year. She lives on a small farm in Wesley Chapel where she trains as a competitive equestrian.

Natalie D. Preston

Natalie D. Preston is a karaoke singing, only-child pouting, Seminole Tomahawk waving, newlywed bride blushing, 50-state traveling, girlie girl who loves to shop, read, run and jump up and down on her soapbox.

Fernando Figueroa

Fernando Figueroa is a researcher, educator and lives in Riverview.

Gary Beemer

Interests include humor, politics, economics, community and world affairs, finance, people, religion, music, sports, current events, the arts and education.

Nicole Yunger Halpern

Nicole Yunger Halpern is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where she studies everything she can get her nerdy little hands on. Desired major: life. No, not necessarily biology. Life.

Kris DiGiovanni

Kris DiGiovanni is a Tribune Community Columnist, Huffington Post contributor, Daily Kos diarist, and teacher, who recently moved from NW Hillsborough to another planet - a small beach community in Pinellas County. She also blogs at www.sandscript.wordpress.com

H. David Braswell Jr.

H. David Braswell Jr. is an Information Systems Professional. He is a native New Yorker and a lifelong NY Giants fan. He attended college in California (Cal State Northridge) and moved to Tampa in 1998.

Sean Marcus

Sean Marcus teaches creative writing, journalism and reading at Chamberlain High School. He has one son and is expecting a daughter in early March. He can be reached at wuizabug@gmail.com

Most Recent Entries

Thinking Out Loud

Monthly Archives

Gator Football Games in the Swamp are Great… Butt

Posted Sep 13, 2010 by Gary Beemer

Updated Sep 13, 2010 at 04:05 PM

We are fortunate to have the opportunity to go to all Florida Gator football games in the Swamp because our oldest son is on the team. He is on the field and tickets are hard to come by, so getting to go is both an honor and privilege for sure.

The only problem is that the width allowed for the average American football fan bottom is far from sufficient. While Raymond James Stadium holds about 65,000 fans pretty comfortably, the Swamp bulges with nearly 100,000. In full sun and baking at 90 plus degrees, you’re more likely to feel like a S’more than an actual person.

If you’re lucky enough to have a real seat with a back and arm rests, you can manage to sit through an entire game without needing orthopedic care or an ice bath immediately afterwards. Our seats are the old fashioned kind made from long rows of hard and extremely unforgiving aluminum. Leg room in front is practically non-existent, so being over four feet tall is a real problem. If you’re not flexible enough for the most complicated Yoga positions then you can count on cramping up by the second quarter. Now I know why everyone joins arms and rocks back and forth at the end of the third quarter – to bring circulation back into their lower halves.

This week we went to our section and had seat numbers 3 and 4. What we didn’t realize was that we had sat one row too low, and when the rightful owners came we had to shift one row up.

The only problem was that half of seat number 3 and 4 were covered by the bottoms of folks already sitting in that row, and looking up and down the aisle revealed that everyone was already shoulder to shoulder. My wife sat down and I looked at the six inches of remaining aluminum, then decided to give it the old college how-many-people-can-we-fit-in-a-phonebooth try.

I turned my back to the tiny sliver of aluminum and clicked my heals together while chanting – It would, be great, to shrink into a mini Gator fan! Well that didn’t work. I sat partially on my wife’s lap and on the lap of a total stranger to my left. What was I thinking? I stood back up and apologized to avoid a harassment lawsuit, then looked up and down the row hoping that someone could scrunch over enough to at least let one of my cheeks hit metal. No such luck. I felt like a habitual panhandler who no one wanted to make eye contact with.

Fortunately one seat remained open in the row that we had just vacated, so I slid back down and crossed my fingers that the rightful owner had decided to stay home and watch the game in blissful air conditioning on TV.

At half time we dripped down the stairs and slowly flowed into the bowels of the Swamp that was already teaming with other fans desperate to escape the brutal sun. We ended up standing behind the nice seats for the remainder of the game while chugging down numerous $4 Gatorades in an attempt to stay conscious.

The Gators won big so it was all worth it, but maybe, just maybe it would be OK to watch the 2015 rematch at Raymond James. Not that I don’t love the Swamp…but last Saturday it felt like only REAL Gators were going to get out alive.

(0) Read Comments