Although I spent around three hours watching a rather dry non-game on Saturday, I came away from Davis Wade Stadium with something positive to talk about.
Not only do I have a psychopathic fetish for record-breaking low football scores, but also, on a more serious and off-topic note, stadium seating for wheelchair users has improved to a large degree.
I’ve been going to Mississippi State football games for several years, and as one of many students who use wheelchairs, I have noticed that the additional row of handicapped seating on the west side of the stadium is working wonders. Let me explain.
In every football season until this one, the handicapped seating on the west side was relatively small and often extremely congested, especially during games with Auburn or other highly ranked SEC teams. The congestion was only part of the problem. Even now, the spaces for wheelchairs are all lumped together, whereas most other stadiums and coliseums I’ve visited have chairs interspersed with wheelchair spaces so that a person using a wheelchair can sit next to a friend who doesn’t use a wheelchair.
With Davis Wade lacking design in this area, I have often been forcefully packed into the handicapped section, separated from my friends who can walk, and left to sit next to a complete stranger. Sure, sometimes my friends could acquire a metal folding chair and sit next to me in a space designated for wheelchairs, but if the handicapped section was full, that was impossible.
There are multiple problems with this design. First and foremost, people using wheelchairs simply shouldn’t be marked and relegated away from everyone else like bad products in an assembly line. This kind of mentality reminds me of my sour childhood memories of a YMCA daycare program where the disabled children were segregated from the rest of the children, doomed to spend hours in front a mind-numbing television set (or just a wall, for that matter) and beg stone-faced counselors to push their manual wheelchairs outside into the sunlight. I exaggerate not.
There are also practical problems with this design. Wheelchair users often bring people with them to help them do stuff like eat. Being separated from a friend or a family member makes this complicated to say the least.
But with the new handicapped section, these ills are far less common. There is more space for people to pull up folding chairs and sit where they want. Technically, all of the spaces could still be used up on any given game day, bringing the situation back to where it has been in seasons past. However, even at Saturday’s extremely crowded game, there were still plenty of open spaces to avoid being separated from friends. It would still be better if the sections had been built with a few permanent chairs thrown in.
As far as the handicapped seating in the student section on the east side goes, it is naught. I tried to go there Saturday. Apparently, they closed it because it was too dangerous with all the flying objects and whatnot. I have never heard anything positive about the handicapped section on that side. I wait to see what will ever happen with it.
In the most accessible school in the state, one that beats Ole Miss 10-fold in this area, it is about time MSU began to improve handicapped seating in the stadium. I am happy with this year’s overall improvements, but the student section has a long way to go.
Matt Watson is the opinion editor of The Reflector. He can be contacted at [email protected].