Syracuse, N.Y. — Reggie Cannon has been a Syracuse season-ticket holder for 15 years.
The folks in Section 102 met Mia Cannon when they began dating. They knew them as boyfriend-girlfriend. Then they knew them as fiancées. This year, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, they will greet them for the first time as husband and wife.
After a year’s delay they will finally hear about the wedding, rekindling friendships that might have taken for granted in a world before following protocols and avoiding crowds became a way of life.
“I posted a picture of (Reggie) walking through the parking lot saying everything we took for granted before is what we cherish today,” Mia said. “It’s those little things where we thought, we’ll go to another game and do whatever. Then we couldn’t. And now we really, really appreciate it.”
The couple were two of the 31,941 at the Carrier Dome on Saturday for the building’s first football game in 650 days, the venue’s first college sporting event without fan restrictions since the pandemic began in earnest, the first chance to show off $118 million in building renovations to football fans.
The Cannons were looking forward to seeing the renovations, having an excuse to travel from Rochester for the weekend and to spend a beautiful Saturday sitting outside and tailgating.
There was no chance they would miss the game, they said, despite the drive and the uncertainty of dealing with vaccination checks and screening tents and mask requirements once they arrived.
The return of football to the building was a milestone moment for Central New York sports fans, many of whom count the passage of time by the athletic season and were kept from their sports passion a full year by the pandemic.
The game was played during the second year of the coronavirus pandemic, which has contributed to the deaths of more than 650,000 people in the United States alone. Variations of the virus have caused deaths and hospitalizations to increase since the middle of the summer, despite our growing knowledge about transmission and the widespread availability of vaccines.
It came on the anniversary of another event that had world-changing ramifications.
The 17-7 loss to Rutgers came on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a moment that was captured by Syracuse walk-on A.J. Calabro serving as a captain, as well as the meeting of Syracuse and Rutgers, two schools whose alumni frequently populate New York City and had a number of alumni (30 from Syracuse) among the nearly 3,000 immediate victims of the attack.
Rev. Brian Konkol, the Dean of Hendricks Chapel, spoke before the game, while the Syracuse marching band played America the Beautiful at halftime.
The school celebrated first responders, police officers and firefighters whose brethren raced toward danger in the middle of the terrorist attack 20 years ago, and EMTs and paramedics doing it in the midst of the pandemic today.
“Honestly, as I think about today being 9-11, I think about it as a necessary inconvenience at this point,” Cannon said. “The (masks and protocols) are something we’re going to have to go through for a little bit. We have to take our shoes off at the airport because of what happened 20 years ago. If I have to show a card or prove I’m vaccinated to keep people safe, that’s something I may have to do for a while.”
Inside the building, football offered its traditional four-hour escape from any issues more serious than a fourth-down decision or a quarterback rotation. It was a game between two regional rivals, a dose of normalcy and tradition, of hot dogs and beer, of yelling and cheering and, hopefully, no coronavirus spread.
The announce crowd was similar in size to those of Syracuse’s recent non-descript home openers, when teams like Rhode Island, Colgate and Wagner visited the Carrier Dome. Those games, of course, weren’t played in a pandemic and the energy throughout the building on Saturday was far greater for a Big Ten visitor.
Thousands arrived despite protocols that were, at least for some, an additional hurdle, all to watch a team that won a single-game last year against an opponent who won three.
There were noticeably fewer children in attendance, a nod to one of the toughest hurdles to clear.
Brandon Brown’s 5-year-old daughter Rylee would have loved to have been in the Dome. She became a big Sean Riley fan when he played for the Orange – you’ll never guess why – and she loves to find Otto, getting pictures with him whenever she spots him at home and on the road.
Rylee, who lives in Corning, falls in a difficult age range, one that Syracuse and public health officials have currently deemed too young to get the vaccine but old enough to contribute to its spread.
Without a vaccination, her family’s only path into the building is a test they priced out at $211 for each visit (insurance won’t cover tests for football attendance purposes) and the “tickle your brain” experience they weren’t sure they wand to subject her to anyway.
For seven home games, the testing requirement for Rylee would cost more than the family’s six-pack of season tickets.
She attended the Orange’s game in Ohio last week, travelling with her parents, where there were no requirements. On Saturday, she spent the day with her grandmother.
“We told her on the trip back,” said Brandon, a 7-year season ticket holder. “She was upset. She wanted to come to the game.”
Syracuse officials checked vaccination cards and test results at the Carrier Dome gates and in pre-screening tents sprinkled across the campus. At the tents, those with proof of vaccination or a negative test received an orange wristband and expedited access into the building.
Tailgaters who paused their eating three hours before kickoff to get screened cruised through the process without any wait. Those arriving an hour after that waited in line for just under 10 minutes.
And if getting into the building was an annoyance at all, it only seemed to be that way for the late arrivals, with a crush of students piling up outside Gate G as the opening kickoff went into the air, then pouring into the building largely without masks.
The school is at its highest alert level (red), which requires masks to be worn indoors and outdoors when in groups, a mandate that’s certainly more easily maintained in a classroom setting than one that can sit 50,000.
Syracuse University Vice President & Chief Facilities Officer Pete Sala was candid before the game, saying that he did not plan to ask Carrier Dome staff to play the mask police, and that the school would rely on fans to follow its requirements.
Given the division caused by wearing masks in general, the eagerness of everyone to pretend the pandemic is behind us and the desire to make an impact on a football game via crowd noise, Sala’s comments foreshadowed the lax compliance that would follow.
The majority of fans walking around the concourses before the game wore masks as they moved through the building. That number dwindled as time went on. And among the seated, compliance was far worse. Unsurprisingly, being permitted to eat and drink without wearing masks led to yelling, screaming, shouting and cheering without masks too.
Scott Beale, a long-time season ticket-holder from Manlius, sat among the mostly maskless, with two masks covering his mouth and nose. He’s taken the protective measure since the start of the pandemic and, despite how it might have appeared, he wasn’t bothered by the atmosphere around him.
He said he felt completely safe in the Carrier Dome’s upper level.
“It sure beats watching on TV,” he said.
Contact Chris Carlson anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1639
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