Letter: come out for homecoming, make football history

Even though you've never been up at 5:30 a.m. for football practice, lifting weights, running, stretching, being yelled at, yelling back - during the summer (when many of you were on a beach, in Europe, traveling or just preparing to come/come back to this most beautiful campus), YOU can truly MAKE A DIFFERENCE if you come this Saturday at 2:30 p.m. (NOT 3:30 p.m.) to the grand ole lady, UR Stadium.

My name is Mike Radford. My wife and I are the proud parents of two University of Richmond football players - one graduated and the other fighting like hell to get back on the field to finish this, his last season and semester at the greatest university in all of America.

In 2005, when Villanova was coming to UR Stadium, talk of an "on-campus" stadium was just that, TALK. Most of you were still in high school, and some, middle school. I became so pissed at the lack of student support, and, for that matter, fan support in general. The Wildcats were favored, as usual. The weather forecast was bleak. Not many fans were expected.

It was on this day that I became a freak at Richmond football games, home and away. I began on this day in 2005 to lead very energetic fans who wanted to cheer for their Spiders, but needed only to be led. It became very apparent that the willingness to get behind Richmond was at "the end of their tongue."

Richmond won that day, and went on to win eight-straight games, winning the Atlantic 10 championship and beginning this run of unprecedented success.

I had promised when our oldest son enrolled at Richmond, that I WOULD NOT make the same scene at his college games that I did at his high school games. I guess on this fateful October day in '05, I became a liar. It was only after the game, when Christopher told me that more than a few of his teammates told him our cheering made a difference in their enthusiasm for play in the game, that I knew I was not finished. With the help of Brenda Gray and Ted Golobowski, the cheering at Richmond football games took on a whole new energy.

It is five full years later and the old saying, "The rest is history," can describe what has happened since that day.

YOU are the Richmond student. Those players are gone from that team. Those students are gone from this campus.

If you are anything but a freshman, you could have been in Chattanooga, Tenn., last December on a night that you would remember, and try to relive, for the rest of your life. If you were not there, ask someone who was. I promise you, you should have some small to large degree of regret for not going.

This Saturday, YOU, each and every one of you, can be a part of another Chattanooga, if you make the effort to be at the stadium, AND IN YOUR SEATS, before the game, by 2:30 to 3 p.m. When the defending National Champions go back in their locker room it will be pretty difficult to keep them from coming back out on this hallowed field, soon to be barren, before they are supposed to. When the team does emerge and sees 2,000 fellow students - freshmen, sophmores, juniors and seniors - going absoutely nuts, YOU will be a part of what will be one of the biggest victories in the history of Richmond football.

Your participation in the cheering and noisemaking at appropriate times will SHOCK the _________ out of the Villanova coaching staff, players and fans, because never has there been such an atmosphere at a Richmond football game.

Being at the game is important. But being at the game early is, by far, more important.

Get this vision. In Durham, N.C., there is a university that could have enlarged its basketball arena many times its current size. DUKE chooses not to, because the environment surpasses any arena in college basketball in its 8,000-seat stadium.

This Saturday could birth the beginning of the best NCAA Football Championship Subdivision environment in America. And, in doing so, it will not matter how many seats there are in E. Claiborne Robins Stadium next fall. Richmond will be "the Cameron Indoor Stadium" of FCS football.

It will be your generation of Richmond students that will have gotten it started.

As a parent of a player, I know I speak for every other parent in begging each of you to do what I have described above.

Take hold of Dan and Mike as they lead the student section in the most unified voice of support for any Richmond football team EVER to play in the grand ole stadium.

If you do, this team has a great chance to give each of you either your first chance to go to Chattanooga in December, OR, another chance to go to Chattanooga in December.

Moo Da Chains, One More Time.