By Denton Josey, Page Editor
Ranking No. 20 in the nation and still undefeated, the ACU football team plays West Texas A&M University on Thursday at 7 p.m., who is also undefeated and ranked No. 4 in the nation.
For Homecoming, the Wildcat football team received the support of 13,369 fans. For its game in Canyon, organizers are piecing together a road trip to support the team against their toughest challenge and hope to bring 400 fans.
The game is in Canyon, about four and a half hours away, and tickets cost $6. However, for $5 more, ACU is providing six charter buses for transportation. The buses depart at 12:30 p.m. Friday and will return about 3 or 4 a.m. Saturday. Refreshments are in included in the bus fee and a dinner stop is planned.
The President’s Office and Anthony Williams are providing free T-shirts bearing the message, “6-0, 4 to go,” to everyone going on the buses. There are 400 seats near the 50-yard line reserved for ACU upon its arrival.
CSTV will broadcast the game nationally.
Brad Powers, senior education major from Clovis, Calif., pioneered the effort.
Powers said he became interested in organizing support for the game when he heard WTAMU had 18,000 fans at their last game.
“It’s quite depressing when there are 18,000 maroon fans going for the other team and you only have the players’ families in purple,” Powers said. Last year Powers was an assistant wide receivers coach and he noticed a significant decrease in fan support for away games.
Knowing fall break is Friday, Powers said the buses will help students that want to travel for fall break but don’t want to spend gas money for both the game and their weekend travels.
Powers said he and Students’ Association president Maher Saab collaborated on the effort and went to Jim Holmans, executive assistant to the president. From there Saab was able to garner support from Campus Life, the President’s Office, SA and the Athletics Department.
“We presented it to administrators and they started running with it,” Saab said. “There are a lot of people paying for it.”
Powers and Saab both mentioned the trip as an experience unique to college students because of the chance to go on a road trip and support the team. Saab said because it is during fall break, buses will be back after the game in time to give students plenty of chances to do what they want for the holiday.
“It’s going to be an awesome game,” Powers said. “Why wouldn’t you want to go?”
