Leave No Doubt: Scoreboard must be repaired by Saturday's game

Scoreboard was a sore spot on otherwise nice game day.

For the most part, the lines to get into FAMU football game were down by a long shot, getting in and out of the Bragg Stadium parking lot was much improved, but far from perfect.  

Athletic director Kortne Gosha seemed to be very visible riding around in a "tricked out golf cart", not quite as elaborate as the chauffeured driven Mercedes Benz Sprinter he has been known to ride around in, trying to fix problems outside the stadium and trying to create  goodwill.  However, the more than 21,000 fans who showed up to Bragg, had to stare down long lines at concession stands, even as several available concession stands remained closed.  Many simply left the stadium for the shorter lines on Perry Street to get food and came back in to watch the game. 

The scoreboad

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Laughing stocks of the SWAC

And, it was was apparent to all that the FAMU athletics staff, particularly the facilities staff, didn't test the big scoreboard prior to Saturday's game making FAMU the brunt of jokes in the SWAC.    One FB post teased FAMU's claim as being the "No. 1 Public HBCU" , and said "they the best, but we can't even see the game".  That post in a SWAC message group had garnered over 56 comments by this morning (most of them negative), and surely will gain many more through out the week.   With the large scoreboard on the blink, fans were forced to follow the action on the smaller scoreboard on the Galimore-Powell field house to determine how much time was left in the game, the quarter, and down.

Then there was the one unfortunate incident where duplicate parking permits were issued to the same spot, resulting in a fan to be ticketed and towed.

All in all, the numerous and various problems that arose during the Rattlers’ home opener against Ft. Valley State seemed to be fixed.  But, athletics is still along way away from dealing with a larger crowded.