Coastal Carolina receives mostly positive reviews on teal field

Teal is in.

At least that’s what some folks around Brooks Stadium said as the Coastal Carolina football team debuted its teal turf in its home opener against Western Illinois on Saturday.

“The teal field is a huge draw right now for this team and I really like it,” said Zach Hensel, 22, a senior cross country standout at Coastal Carolina. “I think they did a great job with [the field]. The team doesn’t look too bad, either.”

Hensel – a Carolina Forest high school gradutate – was referring to the Chanticleers’ No. 1 ranking in the FCS Coaches poll. The school has found great success on the football field and in other sports.

“As a fan and a Chanticleer myself, I’m always rooting for us to be No. 1,” Hensel said. “I know some of the football players and some other athletes here at Coastal and I know how much work they put in to it. Those guys give it their all and it’s showing.”

Michael Davis, a Conway native, was standing outside the gates of Brooks Stadium on Saturday and didn’t have a ticket. He couldn’t get one either: Coastal’s home opener was sold out.

The school announced a record for ticket sales at 10,311, surpassing last year’s game against Charleston Southern, in which the Chanticleers sold 10,194 tickets.

“I should’ve got a ticket earlier,” Davis said. “But with the game being sold out is a great thing for Coastal and it just means people want to come watch them play.”

Including the students.

Coastal gave out 3,600 student tickets for Saturday’s game, which was the most-ever for a football game in the program’s history. The school even had to take away some seating from the general public as well to accomadate the students.

Sections 108 and 124 were given to the students as well as the deck on top of the west stands.

“We wanted to get the most students in here as possible, because they’re our biggest fans,” said Michael Jacobs, Coastal’s assistant athletic director for tickets and revenue. “This is by far the most tickets we’ve given to students.”

Jacobs admitted that when people like Davis show up at the stadium expecting a ticket and are turned away, it’s always disappointing.

“We tell fans all the time: If they want to come to a game, we’re not the same Coastal Carolina,” Jacobs said.

Nonetheless, Davis is still impressed with the team and the new field.

“I drove by it and was like, ‘Oh God, that’s awesome,’ ” he said. “Coastal is serious about this stuff and the team is really good.”

Meanwhile, John and Betty Short, of Murrells Inlet, were with John and Leslie Schwenker, of Longs, tailgating and playing cards before Saturday’s game.

The Shorts have been season ticket holders at Coastal since the program started under former coach David Bennett in 2003 and the couple convinced the Schwenkers to come to their first Coastal game.

“We talked them into it,” John Short said. “They just had to come see what all the excitement was about.”

The Schwenkers – who are big fans of the Chanticleer baseball program – were sure glad they got their tickets early, too, and are happy for Coastal and the draw the school is getting already.

“We got our tickets two days ago and if we tried to get them today, we wouldn’t have got in,” John Schwenker said. “They had to make more room for the students, too. … I’m most happy the kids are following the team.”

John Short isn’t exactly a huge fan of the new field but admitted it should help the school form its own identity like Boise State, which has a blue field.

“I saw it as I passed by; it should be different,” Short said of the field. “At least you should be able to recognize the ball better. But I think it’s good for Coastal to set a precedent like Boise State.”

In fact, Boise State holds a federal trademark and controls who installs non-green playing fields in college athletics. So when Coastal wanted to make its field green, it had to seek a license from Boise State.

“Coastal may not be a Boise State,” John Short said. “But the school is pretty impressive.”

This story was originally published September 19, 2015 at 8:57 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina receives mostly positive reviews on teal field."