May 26, 2009

Congratulations to the Pirate baseball team and coaching staff for a great regular season that earned ECU and the Greenville community the opportunity to host the first NCAA Baseball Regional to be played right here at "home." This could never have happened without the tremendous support of the best baseball fans in the country who had the foresight to build Clark-LeClair Stadium and then provide a championship game atmosphere.

An NCAA Championship event allows our community to provide our visitors and the rest of the intercollegiate athletic world with a first-class eastern North Carolina experience. The sportsmanship and hospitality exhibited by Pirate baseball fans has provided this excellent opportunity to do everything possible to enhance Greenville's reputation as a GREAT baseball community.

NCAA events have their own rules, policies and expectations. Most notable among those are the fact that no "pass outs" are allowed. This means that once a ticket-holder enters the game, if that individual leaves the stadium, they will not be allowed to re-enter the stadium with the same game ticket. The NCAA requires an increased emphasis on sportsmanship and hospitality, as well a clear ban on the use of alcohol in the stadium and at NCAA-sanctioned functions. The NCAA also expects all teams to be treated equally by the game public address announcers, video board productions, etc. Unruly and/or disrespectful fans for any team will be asked to leave the stadium and will not be allowed to return for later games.

The NCAA bid submitted by ECU allows for 3,000 reserved seats and 1,500 Jungle General Admission (outfield berm) tickets for a total attendance of 4,500 per session. At this time, there are approximately 500 reserved seat tickets and 1,000 Jungle General Admission tickets remaining.

ECU fans should take advantage of the opportunity to purchase all-session tickets before those tickets go on sale to the general public at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday. Single-session (game) tickets, if available, will only be sold prior to each game at the Clark-LeClair Stadium Ticket Office.

Becoming a "host" team on a regular basis is the first step to becoming a strong baseball program that has a chance to get to Omaha every year. Winning the regional you host is the next step in that process and then earning the right to host a Super Regional is the next step. Building a strong program that can take those significant steps regularly does not come easily.

Our football program had to endure painful losses to Rice one year and to Marshall the next before we could win a divisional title and eventual C-USA Championship. But the end result was that our program responded with seven wins, then eight wins, then nine wins for three straight bowl game appearances. We are now building on a solid foundation of success rather than simply winning one divisional championship in 2006 by beating Rice and then possibly failing to go to a bowl in 2007. The loss to Rice and the loss to South Florida in this staff's first bowl game made us hungry for the next year. And, can you imagine where our program would be if the 2007 team had not had the opportunity to play Boise State in Hawaii?

Constructively handling winning and losing is the most difficult step for any coaching staff, team and fan base in any sport. We are still building the proper mindset for moving from being a very good regional baseball program to one that competes at the national level annually. Very few programs are capable of taking that step because it requires a tremendous amount of discipline and hard work to even have a chance.

One thing is for sure - the Pirate Nation is now more important in that quest than they have ever been. Thank you for helping us get to this opportunity and for your discipline and enthusiasm to finish the job.

TH

Please note:

The ONLY pedestrian entrance to Jungle Parking Lot will be through the Charles Street Gate.

Reserved seat ticket holders can go back and forth to the Jungle (outfield berm) but CANNOT GO TO THE JUNGLE PARKING LOT once they have entered the stadium.

Jungle General Admission ticket holders can go back and forth to the concession stands and bathrooms in the stadium but cannot go into the reserved seating area during ECU games. Jungle General Admission ticket holders may sit in unoccupied seats in the reserved seat sections in the upper level only during non-ECU games.