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Party for FAMU fans

Tampa rolls out the orange and green welcome mat for the Rattlers before a game with USF.

By EMILY NIPPS
Published September 11, 2005

TAMPA - This wasn't the type of tailgate party that usually precedes University of South Florida home football games.

Blake High's marching band played Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl, ending the tune on the ground in splits. Groups of men broke into step routines, drawing screams and applause. Kids dressed head to toe in orange and green stood in line for ice cream and plates of barbecue. A beaming Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio circulated, giving hugs and posing for pictures.

Welcome back, Florida A&M University.

"It's just a little bit of a party for FAMU fans," Iorio said. "We want them to know how much we appreciate that they're in Tampa."

It had been nine years since the Rattlers last played in Tampa, and quite a bit has changed since then. There's a different mayor, a different stadium, even a different club scene in Ybor City and downtown.

Visiting alumni from the historically black college might have noticed something else, too. The Tampa Bay Center mall, repeatedly accused of discrimination during the early to mid 1990s when the Florida Classic FAMU-Bethune Cookman College games were played across the street, has been demolished. The mall got its worst rap when it closed early in 1993 to keep out the crowd that was leaving the game.

That, combined with rumors of price gouging and unfair reservation demands at local hotels, didn't sit well with FAMU and BCC fans, several of whom were glad to see the Classic move to Orlando in 1997. Saturday's game was the first time some fans returned to Tampa.

"I couldn't believe Tampa would turn away that kind of money (generated by the Classic), and for what . . . racial discrimination?" said Herman Floyd, a 40-year-old South Carolina State University graduate who showed up to support the Rattlers and see some of his Omega Psi Phi brothers from FAMU. "The question now is: Will history repeat itself?"

Saturday's "Mayor's Game Day Spectacular" certainly aimed to calm those fears. While a majority of the FAMU fans who attended the tailgate party live in the Tampa Bay area, many of those who remember the mall and hotel episodes seemed satisfied with the special treatment . . . for now.

"There's still some work to do," said Jackie Hearns, a 1982 FAMU grad and vice president of the Tampa chapter of the FAMU Alumni Association. "This is a great event, and I love the mayor for offering an olive branch to the university. But we have to keep this thing in perspective."

Michael Reid, a 1984 FAMU graduate who owns a Tampa-based travel and event planning business, said he has some former classmates who refuse to come back to the area because of the way they were treated during the classics.

"The thing is, you hear some people gripe about it and it didn't even happen to them," Reid said. "We have a whole new vibrant demographic here in Tampa. The choice is theirs; they can gripe if they want."

Then there were those like 1956 FAMU graduate and the Tampa Alumni chapter president Mary White Darby, who thoroughly enjoyed the Mayor's Game Day Spectacular, as well as Thursday's President's Gala and Friday's Welcome Back Alumni Reception.

"This is wonderful, just wonderful," Darby said. "It shows the city is trying to correct what happened in the past. That's a positive."

Jean Downing, president of the Jacksonville Alumni chapter, said he wouldn't even mind seeing the Florida Classic return to Tampa. He can't stand Orlando's stadium, he said.

That battle between FAMU and another historically black college could very well take place in Tampa sometime in the near future, said Angela Brewton, a coordinator who represents the Tampa alumni chapter and helped the city plan the week's events. The possibility was discussed, she said, and Iorio seemed enthusiastic about it.

"They (city officials) missed the money," Brewton said. "Everyone benefited greatly when the Florida Classic was here. And she (Iorio) remembers that. She remembers."

One highlight of Ash Anderson's pregame experience was hanging out with his buddies from Omega Psi Phi again. The 1977 graduate and his fraternity brothers, who call themselves "the Ques," were simply happy to have the chance to get together and go to a game in Tampa, where many of them live.

Another highlight was taking his picture with Iorio. He and his brothers invited her to join in during their step routine, which she politely declined, then they gathered around her for a snapshot. Anderson held the printed photo, a glossy 8 by 10 showing Anderson and four other smiling brothers crowded around the mayor and handing her a barbecued chicken leg.

Iorio even autographed the picture.

"To AshCan," it said, "Be out with the Ques!"

[Last modified September 11, 2005, 01:23:55]