KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Waldo Stadium, the home of the Western Michigan Broncos, provides a great environment for college football fans.
"The fact that it sits into a hill and it's kind of sunk down and people feel like they're right on top," Western Michigan head coach Tim Lester said. "It's just an unbelievable atmosphere for college football."
The atmosphere on Broncos game day can be experienced by as many as 30,000 fans as Waldo Stadium has the second largest capacity in the MAC.
Of those 30,000 seats, there are many options for fans to choose from. The Broncos faithful can sit in seats with backings near the press box, they can park it in the typical stadium bleachers or they can rent a portable seat to put on top of the bleachers.
However, there is one seat inside Waldo Stadium that is different from all of the rest not just in Kalamazoo, but all of college football.
"I've never seen anything like it," College football traveler Mike Barker said.
It's in Section Z, Row 21, Seat 2. The seat was pointed out during the Northern Illinois game by Barker on his twitter account "CFBcampustour."
The tweet has received over 8,000 favorites on twitter.
"To me, it was just so unique because it was in the back corner and it was a two-row bleacher, which is very odd for me," Barker said.
Barker has traveled to all 131 stadiums in the FBS. The 43-year-old real estate agent from California has many goals at each stadium he visits, but one of his tasks is to locate the seats in the stadium with obstructed views. Barker says after exploring Waldo Stadium last week, this is the most unique seat he has ever seen.
"These were just one of two and hidden and forgotten about," Barker said. "So if you sat up there you can only see about 15 percent of the field."
Due to the obstructed views from Section Z, Row 21, Seat 2, the Western Michigan ticket sales team says those tickets are not for sale.
"We obviously don't sell it because it is a restricted seating," Western Michigan senior associate athletic director for external operations Elaine Russell said. "There are there are other seats in the stadium that we don't typically sell because of obstructed views but that seat is not in our in our ticket manifest to sell."
Regardless, Barker always loves to find the distinct parts of every college football stadium, that makes it stand out.
"When you look at these unique quirks at a stadium, what you're doing is you're pointing out interesting things that people can come back and visit check out take photos from themselves," Barker said. "Again, it's not to poke fun or talk down a stadium is more just to show the idiosyncrasies that each unique venue has to offer."
Barker has offered some advice for those looking to make their own stadium discoveries.
"Go to a stadium," Barker said. "Investigate yourself. Go to every inch there. The best way to form opinions is have boots on the ground and see yourself. That's part of the reason that I travel all over the country to college football games."
Waldo Stadium was the 43rd different stadium Barker has visited this college football season. Last year, Barker hit 81 different college football venues. Sometimes, Barker attends three different games in one day.
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