Buying season tickets remains a Bulldog tradition
THOMASVILLE — Philip Faulk has some of the best seats in the house to watch his Thomasville Bulldogs — season tickets midway up on the 50-yard line.
“If I let them go, I knew somebody would snatch them up,” Faulk said.
The two seats entered his family in 1974, when they belonged to his parents. When his dad died, Faulk said his mother had to write a letter to Sarah Annie Floyd saying it was OK for them to be released to his son.
Now Faulk is the one making and fielding calls about season tickets to Veterans Memorial Stadium following Floyd’s death in February. Floyd made her name badgering ticket holders to renew year after year.
Faulk is having fun at the job seeing old friends and customers after retiring last fall and closing his store, Jerger’s Jewelers. Every day this week he sits at the Thomasville High School Dog Pen Store, located just inside the main entrance, and waits for people to come in to pay for and pick up their tickets.
The school mailed out reminders to have ticket holders either inform them they weren’t going to keep the tickets this year or to come in and pick them up. Faulk also calls the ticket holders, just as Floyd used to.
Brad Hinson, a Thomasville football alumni who played from 1989 to 1992, is one of the ticket holders who has come in to pick up his tickets. As with Faulk’s, Hinson’s tickets have been passed down from his parents, who purchased in 1974.
“My parents sat in them for the national championship that year and then when my brother played and then me after him,” said Hinson, whose daughter attends Jerger Elementary School. “And after college, I took them over.”
Hinson’s tickets are two of the 650 Faulk is looking to sell. Last season, only about 125 were left unsold by the time season ticket sales commenced. Most ticket holders have held their tickets for a while. Faulk said the holders are evenly divided between parents of children who paraticipate in football, cheerleading or the band and fans.
Though slated to end this Friday, Faulk said the deadline might be extended to next Friday, Aug. 22, when Thomasville opens the season at home against West Laurens at 8 p.m.
“It’s not uncommon for people to want to keep their tickets, but forget until the first game and think, ‘oh, I need to pick up my tickets,’” Faulk said. Hence the extension.
Once the window for buying and renewing season tickets closes, they’ll go on sale as single-game tickets. Those cost $5 when purchased at the high school the day of the game and $8 at the gate.
Season tickets are $50 for five games, putting them at double the cost of buying single game tickets. So why buy?
Faulk doesn’t hesitate to answer.
“These are the best seats.”