Home Field Advantage

With Lively Atmospheres and Cheap Seats, Smaller Football Colleges Offer More Bangs for Your Bucks

Football is to fall what baseball is to summer. Only much, much more expensive.

Unless you want to take out a second mortgage, the chances of getting your family into a Redskins game this season are slim to none. Even at the University of Maryland, $45 will get one adult into Saturday's game -- in Section 302. From those seats, you can see the Washington Monument and maybe the players . . . if you squint or bring binoculars.

So skip the $35 parking and the crowded Metro cars and take the family to a game at one of the area's smaller football colleges. Sure, the players might not be destined for the pros, but the draw isn't just the game; it's the marching bands, grassy end zones where you can picnic and the chance for kids to meet the players at halftime.

Tom Costello of Potomac stretches his legs out on a blue-and-gold polka dot blanket and rests his bare feet in the grass at a recent Navy game in Annapolis. He's not a regular Navy fan, but, he says, he is today. His daughters bounce around him barely paying attention to the game happening less than 100 feet in front of them. His in-laws, the Deroecks, visiting from Belgium, watch the game intently.

"This is much more spectacular. Much more energy," says Frank Deroeck, comparing it to European football (soccer here in the States).

Part of the energy comes from the location of their seats. The Deroecks and the Costellos have spread out their blankets on a hill directly behind one end zone. The general admission section ($20 for adults, $10 for kids) is so close to the action that when the players kick a field goal, kids gather around to catch it.

But throughout the game, there is a much greater attraction for kids. It is a hill steep enough to slide down on a collapsed cardboard box. Hearing cheers, a couple of kids pause from their slide to see what the fuss is all about (Duke has scored, leading 36-25) before turning around and continuing their march up the hill. Barefoot, sweaty and grass-stained, they fly down the hill. The braver, older fans surf.

"It's not worth it to pay that much if you know they are not going to sit in the seats," Nancy Salisbury says as she watches her sons Jackson, 6, and Joshua, 4, slide down the hill. Max, 1, waits at the top.

Salisbury and her husband, Kurt, live in Annapolis and have season tickets "because it is so family-friendly." The two older boys watched the game for about a quarter before taking to the hill. Mom and Dad are perfectly happy to watch the game from the top.

If it had been a Navy touchdown, many of the kids would have run right down to the end zone, where midshipmen clad in their dress whites do a push-up for every point scored. The middies are always happy to give high-fives and lead cheers.

The pageantry of the game is part of the draw for non-football fans. Besides the section of midshipmen, there is a brigade march and a host of mini blimps in the tailgate area representing different classes. The stadium is a bit of a memorial itself: The names of all the operations the Navy has been involved in line the sections.

One of the most exciting parts of Navy football is the pregame flyover. "When they have the jets go, it is pretty impressive," Salisbury says. Even Max says "Whoa" as the plane rockets past.