Sept. 3, 2011
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By Andrea Bejarano
UCFAthletics.com
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) - As UCF students graduate and go on with their lives, they create traditions that last for years.
A group of UCF alumni have created and maintained a tradition based on communication and passion for not only their school, but also for their football team.
"We started our tradition of tailgating and really putting a lot of effort and time into it to do a quality tailgate with the first game on campus against Texas on Sept. 15, 2007," Stephen Alianiello said.
As young alumni, Alianiello saw this as an opportunity.
"We saw alumni tailgating for 25 to 30 years and we thought we were never going to be at that point, but once we had a stadium on campus, we saw this opportunity from day one."
On an average of 30-40 friends, this group utilizes social media to keep organized; having a group called Saturday Knights on Facebook has allowed them to communicate in a way that works for everyone.
"We are all on already so that makes it easy in the way that it notifies us about things such as who writes on the wall," Alianiello said. "It also helps us to know who is committed to tailgating that year and what they are able to contribute in terms of how many tents we are going to have, how many tables we need and what supplies we need to buy."
This is by no means an exclusive group of friends. As these grow and they all go different ways in their lives, new people come and adopt this tradition as their own.
"We want to open it up to more people," Alianiello said. "We all have friends or relatives that are in town for certain games, so we have a calendar of events for every game that enables us to keep track on who is bringing what."
"We try to have at least one road game every year," Alianello said. "We went to Miami a couple of years ago, we have gone to USF twice and we now have plans to go to FIU and ECU this year." In addition, this group is fortunate enough to have Chris Brown as one of their members. As the president of the Tampa Bay UCF Alumni Chapter, he organizes trips and UCF viewing parties in Tampa at least once a year.
"Our group started off as a small circle of close friends from the UCF College of Business," Brown said. "As our group grew, people got married, people made new friends and although our group does not look the same as it did in 2007, it is growing and it's the best it's ever been."
From day one this group was thinking ahead. "We started this tradition when we were on our mid-20s, but we knew we wanted to continue this tradition for as long as we wanted," Brown said. "Every year we knew it would become more meaningful, we are planning on doing this for fifty years more."
As soon as these friends graduated from UCF, one of their first investments was to buy season tickets. "It is not just about the game, but also the game day," Brown said. "We invest in the whole experience."
This tradition has been going for five years now," Brown said. "We have no plans on stopping."
UCF football season ticket packages can be purchased online at UCFAthletics.com or by calling the UCF Athletics Ticket Office at (407) 823-1000. Should UCF host the C-USA Championship Game for the fourth time in seven years, it would be played on Saturday, Dec. 3, and season ticket holders will receive the first shot at the best seats.