Football Collides With Politics in Tallahassee
Nov. 15 -- No recount is needed in this Florida crisis: The 5,000 hotel rooms in Tallahassee can’t accommodate both thousands of rabid football fans and hundreds of journalists who will be staying in the state capital this weekend.
And in this case, football appears to be trumping politics.
About 200 to 300 members of the media have been staying in Tallahassee hotels during the past week to cover all of the ballot recounts and legal wrangling of the ongoing presidential election. But this weekend, they’ll have to vacate their rooms when football fans with long-standing hotel reservations arrive for Saturday night’s game between the Florida State Seminoles and rival University of Florida Gators.
“We’ve got guests that have made reservations for this football game last year,” said Erica Outing, office manager at the Tallahassee Quality Inn. “So it’s not like we can very well boot those guests out because they’re here every year and every game.”
The collision of the two national pasttimes of politics and football appears to be the talk of the town.
“It seems like people are either interested in football or politics,” said Nevada Morris, a front desk clerk at the Tallahassee Red Roof Inn. “I, myself, am about sick of both of them.”
Room at the Frat House
This presidential election between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush is one of the biggest news events in decades. But football is serious stuff in Florida, where three of the state’s teams are ranked among the top four in the nation, according to The Associated Press and the USA Today/ESPN polls.
The rivalry between the No. 3 Seminoles and the fourth-ranked Gators is particularly intense: Five times in the last seven years, the winner of the November game between these two teams has gone on to play for the national championship.
About 80,000 fans will attend the game at Doak-Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, creating a hotel room shortage. In addition to the city’s 5,000 hotel rooms, there are another 1,000 rooms within a 50 to 60 mile radius, according to Charles Wright, executive director of the Leon County Tourist Development Council.
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