UCF fans have put in requests for the UCF Game Day Committee meeting notes and have received some records back. You can download these records by clicking here. It’s mostly PowerPoint presentations sprinkled with some emails and attachments. I haven’t gotten a chance to read every single document, but I would recommend taking a look at 10-2-08 presentation PDF. Let me show you an exert that has caught my eye as well as many other fans so far.

A couple things that make this interesting:

• Most important, it would appear that the UCFAA along with the UCF A+F (Admin & Finance) preferred an even more restrictive policy of limiting tailgating to only 5 hours prior to game start. What’s interesting about this is there has been a lot of implied finger pointing from UCFAA officials towards other entities as to why tailgating was changed with an implication that they didn’t necessarily support it but they can’t really do much about it. However this document clearly shows it is simply false. The document also shows that the SGA (student government) representative preferred no time change and a traditional 7am start. Fans needed point fingers beyond UCFAA as they are the ones who should be representing us and they either pushed this change or were completely on board with it, then didn’t accept their role when fans became angered.

• During the August 17th tailgate review meeting on campus the Admiral was asked about whether this and other changes were a knee jerk reaction to the USF game. If you recall it was after that game UCF started painting tent lines on Memory Mall and then of course the infamous cherry picker debacle. The Admiral responded that this was not a knee jerk reaction to the USF game. By strict definition he may be right, but this definitely looks like a strong emotional reaction of some sort to the game. For example take a look at the PDF for 9-4-08 and you will not see any indication of a desire for tailgate time restrictions or discussion of issues about Memory Mall density. The USF game was played on 9-6-08 and a meeting a few days after included “Fan density; Mall laydown” as issues among others. Then just a few weeks later, after a couple of road games, time restriction discussions began on 10-2-08 with options already on the table. I doubt it was a reaction to away games at Boston College and UTEP. It would definitely appear that policy was crafted in response to a game against our most heated rival in a situation where the Memory Mall was packed with students from both schools due to school proximity. If anything it sounds like maybe a new policy could be adopted for any future home games against USF rather than create a new standard based on one outlier.

• Again the date for the meeting where the tailgate time restrictions were discussed was 10-2-08, so back in October of 2008 there was already discussion of reduced tailgating times. Yet no word of it when renewals were due in March of 2009. Also no mention of it at any of the open community GKC events that took place with top UCFAA staff including Keith Tribble in the spring of 2009. In fact at the meeting I attended in Lake Mary he hinted at a change to the open container waiver, yet absolutely NO MENTION of a possible time change. Puzzling considering as it is now apparent that it was already discussed by him or someone on his team 6 months prior.

• Maybe I’m missing it but looking at the majority of these documents I haven’t come across any indication as to what it is they are trying to achieve with the changes. On the far right column it appears they are saying that a reduction to only 5 hours of tailgating time would help support their goals. If they have specific goals they are trying to achieve what exactly are they? Are they the tailgate committee’s goals this helps? UCFAA? GKC? What are the goals and why are fans and donors completely in the dark? Can we achieve these goals in alternative ways? Why was seemingly no thought put into alternative solutions in these meetings to these unknown problems?

• Lastly I’ll point out a exert from the Options.pdf file. Notice that it says the following in summarizing the 2007 season: “Terrific year; no serious problems; however, need to get fans in the stadium.” So if the 2007 season was terrific with no serious problems, why not stick with that formula? Every indication points to the administration reacting to isolated incidents during the USF game to completely alter the UCF tailgate experience and doing so without any fan/donor involvement.

I’m going to continue to dig into this along with try to find some previous quotes by UCFAA officials that contradict what we are finding out in these new records. As a 20+ year extremely dedicated Knight fan I’m shocked, upset, and disappointed with how this entire process has been handled. So many problems and issues…deception, lack of communication, lack of representation, lack of response, and a general lack of respect for the fans that give so much time and energy to this University. And for the last time, this is not about drinking. At all. Zilch.