Southeast football will face regional-rival at Busch Stadium

For the first time since the new Busch Stadium opened in 2006 two football teams will clash on the field. The Southeast Missouri State University football team will face regional-rival SIU Carbondale on Sept. 21.

Busch Stadium has held thousands of events including meetings, weddings, charity events and concerts, but never has held a non-major league baseball sporting event before this year.

The first non-MLB sporting event to be held in the stadium will be a match between two English Premier League soccer teams. Chelsea and Manchester City will play there on May 23.

Southeast and SIU Carbondale are only about 45 miles away from each other, and it takes just about an hour to get from one university to the other. The football game was scheduled to be played at Houck Stadium, but officials from both schools reached an agreement with the St. Louis Cardinals to hold the first NCAA football game in Busch Stadium.

"We have a huge alumni base up there, about 24,000 alums in the greater St. Louis area and [Southeast director of athletics] Mark Alnutt thought of the idea and brought it to me, and I thought it would be a great idea," Southeast football coach Tony Samuel said.

Billy Nickelson, a recent Southeast graduate living in DeSoto, Mo., near St. Louis, is excited about the football game at Busch Stadium.

"When I found out about there being a football game being played at Busch Stadium next year I was a little shocked because you don't really hear about stuff like that around these parts, but how exciting it must be for the athletes to be part of Busch Stadium history," Nickelson said.

Combined the teams have approximately 40 players from the greater St. Louis area on their rosters.

"We've got 24 kids from that area, so they are excited and just the idea of playing in Busch Stadium is huge," Samuel said. "It's a lot of media and the stadium holds 30,000 fans.

"They have made a great plan for tickets, going to be $5 for students. Also they are trying to come up with a way to bus students up to the game."

Southeast football player Ben Schmidt is from Ohio and even though he is not from the area and has never been to Busch Stadium, he is excited about the experience playing in a big stadium.

"When I found out I was playing in Busch Stadium I was pretty excited," Schmidt said. "Not a lot of college athletes get the chance to play in a venue that large with a crowd.

"I have never attended a sporting event at Busch Stadium, so to be able to play inside it for my first experience is pretty cool."

The football game not only excites the members of the team, school and alumni, but also has a huge impact on the surrounding community.

"There was a rumor way back that this was going to happen, so we had a lot of people asking, which means that a lot of people are interested," Samuel said. "This is a big St. Louis Cardinals country in the first place, and I know a lot of people in the community and campus are going to want to get up there to check it out."

Samuel hopes that the game will attract a lot of fans as well as get some alumni to attend the game, boosting the number of fans in the crowd.

"The players were fired up about the game," Samuel said. "Every time we've played them at home the stadium has been sold out, and if we can get up there and get 30,000 fans there then that is triple what we would have here."

Southeast opens its season against Southeastern Louisiana on Aug. 29.