Click here for a video of the NAIA Championship Events Administrator's tour of Rome on Thursday.
Between the freshly cut grass, the yard lines painted on the field, the NAIA National Football Championship banner hanging above the press box, Barron Stadium was looking its best on Thursday.
The only things missing were the players and the fans.
Shorter College and Rome are hoping they’ll be along soon enough.
The reason for all of the sights of a Saturday in fall was the visitation by NAIA Championships Events Administrator Renee Hultgren.
Her visit to Barron Stadium was the centerpiece of the first day of her tour of Rome and Floyd County in the selection process for the host of the 2008 and 2009 NAIA National Football Championship games.
“Overall, Shorter has put together such a good bid package that I’m very impressed,” Hultgren said following her extensive observations of Barron and the surrounding facilities.
“Any questions we have, anything we need to change, they’re more than willing to do. So far, it’s looking really good and it’s something that is definitely going to be an option we seriously look at.”
Along with Barron, Hultgren received a tour of Shorter College Thursday and threw out the first pitch at the Rome Braves game.
Today, she’ll tour the fields and facilities of the Darlington School that would be used for practice by the teams competing for the national title and get a look at what Rome has to offer as far as hotels, restaurants and The Forum before ending the official visit.
Rome is the first site visit Hultgren has made in relation to bids for the 2008-2009 contests.
“This is a national game so we have to make sure that we have national championship facilities and the caliber is first class,” Hultgren said.
“But we also want it to be an experience that our fans, our coaches, our staff and, most importantly, our student-athletes go away and remember for the rest of their lives.”
Hultgren said that the NAIA selection board would make a decision on the host by Sept. 1.
The national championship has been played in Savannah, Tenn. since 1996 and was first played in 1956.
If Shorter is given the bid to host the title game, it will mark the first time it will be played in Georgia since 1965 when it was held in Augusta.
Shorter Athletic Director Bill Peterson was optimistic about the impression that Rome and Floyd County made on Hultgren.
“First and foremost is just the fact that it’s a great football town and I think we can put 8,000 to 9,000 people (in Barron Stadium) and maybe have one of the best championships they’ve ever had,” he said.
“I think the thing she’s finding out is that unlike a lot of cities in close proximity to Atlanta, obviously Rome is a city of it’s own with it’s own character.”
Hultgren said that they would take into account the ways in which Rome has hosted sporting events such as the 2007 South Atlantic League All-Star Game, the Tour de Georgia bike race and the Nick Hyder Classic football game.
“When a town and an institution have experience in hosting events, it’s always going to tell us that they’ve done it before and they know what goes into it,” Hultgren said.
Hultgren acknowledged the work that Shorter College, which will play its third season of football this fall, had put into just her visit.
“When the site visit is organized, you kind of have a feeling that the event is going to run well too,” she said. “That’s a really big factor.
“It’s very positive and a good outlook to know that they’re that interested and that they really would be dedicated to putting on a good NAIA championship for us.”
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