A sea of gold marched from nine charter buses into Vaught-Hemingway Stadium at Ole Miss this weekend to watch the Tiger football team pull out a win against the Rebels.
Student Government sponsored its annual bus trip Saturday and took almost 500 students to the LSU-Ole Miss game dressed in matching gold T-shirts.
Jesse Gomez, SG director of special projects, and Brad Golson, SG assistant director of special projects, both said the bus trip was a tremendous success.
SG President Allen Richey said this weekend marked the fourth annual SG bus trip since the Huey Long era. He said it was a long-standing tradition which was revived by former SG President Sterling Foster.
Students who participated in the trip met in the Tiger Stadium parking lot at 5:30 a.m. Saturday, headed to the game just before 7 a.m. and arrived on the Ole Miss campus about an hour and a half before game time.
Upon arrival, students poured out of the buses wearing their matching gold T-shirts and other LSU paraphernalia. Other LSU fans who were tailgating around the Ole Miss campus cheered and chanted as the bus trip participants marched by.
Natalie Pittman, a management junior, said this year was her first experience on the bus trip and she thought it was a great deal.
“We didn’t have to worry about where to park or where to stay,” Pittman said. “There was nothing to plan. They did it all for us.”
Pittman said SG did a great job planning the trip.
“I like going with all those people because you don’t feel like the minority,” Pittman said.
Although the game was “stressful,” Pittman said SG could not have picked a better away game to go to this season.
Kerri McGimsey, a mass communication junior, said this was her third year to participate in the trip and she has enjoyed it every year. In previous years, McGimsey has gone to the University of Alabama and Auburn University on the bus trips.
“I think it’s a great deal because you get a trip there and back, a lunch, a ticket and you get to go with hundreds of other Tiger fans,” McGimsey said. “I think it’s awesome that we can all march into the stadium together – a sea of gold.”
McGimsey said this year’s trip was a lot better than last year’s when the Tigers lost to Auburn and it rained on the fans.
Although she did not know the game was going to be a “must-win” when she signed up for the trip, McGimsey said it was the “best game of the season to attend.”
McGimsey said the overwhelming number of Tiger fans who made the trip for the game, the team’s performance and the crowd’s energy combined to make the trip an incredible experience.
“I was not impressed with Ole Miss’ stadium, their fans, their team or Eli [Manning],” McGimsey said. “LSU took over the stadium and the Ole Miss campus.”
The crowd of 62,552 at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium set an attendance record not only for Ole Miss, but for any Mississippi college football game.
Students on the bus trip brought newspapers into the stands to participate in what is usually a basketball tradition. Fans pretended to ignore the announcer and shook the papers in front of their faces as he introduced quarterback Eli Manning and the rest of the Ole Miss senior football players for “senior day.”
Bus trip participants and other fans chanted “Geaux to Hell Ole Miss” and “Eli Sucks” as the clock ran out and the Tigers captured another victory.
Golson and Gomez said SG sold out of tickets for the trip long before fans knew the impact this game would have on the Tigers’ season.
Gomez said the tickets sold out faster this year than ever before and the already six page waiting list for spots on the trip grew to seven pages after the Tigers beat Auburn on Oct. 25.
“It’s a sell out in one day,” Golson said. “That shows that the student body from the get-go was really excited about the trip.”