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Football fans search for good seats inside and out

Many who didn't want to pay for Outback Bowl tickets were happy watching the action from bars or the parking lot.

By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published January 3, 2006

	[Times photo: James Borchuck]
	Iowa fans show support for their team while sporting attire not commonly worn there at this time of year. A couple of Iowa alumni said the Hawkeyes usually travel with 30,000 fans in tow. But the Hawkeyes' fans couldn't save them from losing the Outback Bowl; the Gators triumphed 31-24.

TAMPA - Sisters Anna and Sina Decaria spent Monday morning walking around outside Raymond James Stadium, shaking their heads no.

"I'm a (University of Florida) student, and it's never been this bad up there," Anna Decaria said.

Most scalpers wanted nothing less than face value for Outback Bowl tickets on game day. And the cheapest tickets being hawked had a face value of $60.

"I'd go to a bar before I pay that," Anna Decaria said.

The Decarias had set their spending limit at $40 per ticket. All around them outside the stadium, as the Florida Gators took on the Iowa Hawkeyes, there were similar scenes of negotiations and turned down offers.

"You can't go to the ticket window and get them for half price just because the game started," a scalper told a group of people haggling with him about his ticket prices.

"That's right!" yelled a man walking by with tickets in hand, heading for the entrance gate.

The sidewalk along W Tampa Bay Boulevard sounded like an auctioneers' row, with dozens of people selling tickets. They didn't appear to be breaking Florida law, which defines scalping as selling a ticket for more than $1 above its face value - a second-degree misdemeanor.

A large police presence was not evident outside the stadium, but Tampa police often have undercover officers keeping tabs on scalpers at big sports events.

Sand Whelan managed to put it all behind her. Literally.

She sat on a bus bench on the street with her back to the stadium, reading the book Summer By the Sea . She left the task of buying tickets from a scalper to her son.

"My son is rooting for Iowa, but I could care less. That's why I'm sitting here reading a book," said Whelan, who was visiting Zephyrhills from Glens Falls, N.Y., for the holidays.

Kari Nogalski of West Palm Beach circled the stadium, two fingers in the air signaling the number of tickets she needed.

"I heard that Iowa has a huge following," she said. "Maybe that's why it's so hard to get in."

Iowa alumni Ken Wolf and Eryn Soreide of Des Moines said the Hawkeyes usually travel with 30,000 fans in tow. The couple thought this bowl game would be as easy to get into as others they've gone to.

"The last time we went to the Orange Bowl, they were practically giving tickets away," Soreide said.

After 45 minutes of searching and no one willing to sell them two tickets for a total of $80, Wolf and Soreide started thinking about Option B.

"Isn't there a Bennigan's around here?" he said with a laugh.

Tim Lehman of Jacksonville was one of the few content to tailgate outside the stadium for the entire game. In fact, he said he had tickets but sold them.

"There's so many good games on today, I just wanted to sit out here and watch them," he said.

Surrounded by about a dozen people, some with bullhorns, Lehman sat outside an old, yellow school bus he bought and converted into an orange and blue Gator fans' party bus.

Lola Rohan and her friends couldn't wait to tell everyone back home in Orlando about the great seats they got at the Outback Bowl.

They had grass under their feet, plenty of room on a stadium bench and a view of every play on the football field. All this, from a parking lot outside the stadium.

"We've got better seats than some people inside," Rohan said.

They found the bench near the stadium and carried it across the street to a spot where they could see the play-by-play from the giant screen. To avoid paying as much as $25 to park, they left their car at a nearby Kmart. No charge.

"We haven't spent a cent the whole time we've been here," Rohan said.

[Last modified January 3, 2006, 08:51:21]