Early on game days, graduate students spend hours getting Peden ready for kickoff.
At 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, Peden Stadium, which holds 24,000 people for Ohio University football games, was almost completely empty — except for about 20 OU graduate students.
“Hopefully the sun will be coming up soon,” Andy Szabo, a second-year sports administration graduate student at OU, said.
Szabo, and the other students in his program, are responsible for the setup and tear down of Peden before and after every home game.
“(We set up) everything that’s not bolted to the ground for the most part outside the stadium, and chairs and tables inside,” Gary Pasqualicchio, another second year sports administration graduate student, said.
Saturday, they met at 6 a.m., to set up chairs and tables at the Pepsi Tailgreat Park, before crossing Richland Avenue to the stadium.
On the north end of the field, the graduate students hammered stakes into the ground, holding up tents that covered the stadium's Touchdown Club.
Outside, other students put up the gates that spectators would be filing through later that afternoon.
Pasqualicchio said they don’t have to wake up that early every week.
But for most second year students, those early hours are a special privilege.
“In our first year in the sports program, we’d be tearing down, sometimes until 1 a.m.,” Pasqualicchio said. “So it’s a different look on things. You have to get up early but we can go home when the game’s over.”
First and second year students also have to work during the games.
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“We fill almost every general staff roll you can imagine,” Pasqaulicchio said. “I like to say from elevator down to video replay assistant ... anything in between, bleachers or working at the Bobcat Club for premium seat members.”
Andrew Bauschelt, another second-year sports administration graduate student, said the learning curve on the process is fairly short.
“I think after the first week it’s a lot easier,” Bauschelt said. “Everyone knows what they have to do.”
Before the first home game of the season, the crew took about three hours to set the stadium up.
This week, they were done by 8 a.m.
“Everybody is pretty committed to getting this done as quickly as possible,” Bauschelt said. “Last week it was raining and it was cold. It’s much nicer today.”
For many of the students, that sense of teamwork is what keeps them going.
In spite of the early hours, it helped having other students around, Becca Hemby, also a second-year sports administration graduate student, said.
“I could use some coffee,” she said. “It’s early in the morning but everyone’s working together, so (there’s) adrenaline. That always helps.”
Szabo said the students hold each other accountable to make sure they all show up and do their fair share.
He also said the work they do is not too different from the work they did during their undergraduate studies, and the work they’ll do in their future careers.
“I think it’s something that we’ve been accustomed to our whole lives, working in the sports industry and working with a lot of college athletes” Szabo said. “We know the unorthodox hours and we’ve come to expect that and we know that our career path is a little unorthodox ... so it’s something we just deal with and have fun with.”
Jason Farmer, assistant athletic director for OU and director of facilities for The Convo, said the system of graduate students helping to set up the stadium has been in place since he came to the university in 2001.
“I think (the) practical experience is invaluable,” he said. “It’s not just hands-on work, it’s actual work. … In my operation, they’re doing 90 percent of the actual work.”
In addition to helping expedite the process of preparations before the game, Farmer said, the work also provides students with experience that they can use later in their careers.
“I always tell them, if you open yourself up to this experience, especially if you stay in college athletics, you’re going to realize how much you learned here,” he said.
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