Culture
Pat Yasinskas of ESPN.com observed that while there is "a bit of a wine-and-cheese atmosphere at Panthers games ... there is a strong core of diehard fans who bring energy to Bank of America Stadium. Charlotte lives and dies with the Panthers because there aren't a lot of other options in the sports world". In 2004, NPR reporter Scott Jagow observed that the Panthers' Super Bowl appearance in 2004 represented the arrival of Charlotte onto the national scene, despite the crowd's "wine and cheese" reputation. The Panthers are also supported in South Carolina; Nikki Haley, the Governor of South Carolina, declared July 30, 2012, "Carolina Panthers Day" in South Carolina, saying that "when it comes to professional teams, the Carolina Panthers are the team that South Carolina calls their own". Sports Illustrated graded the Panthers as having the tenth-highest "NFL Fan Value Experience", attributing much of the fan atmosphere to the team's newness when compared to the established basketball fanbase. They noted that while visiting fans often outnumber Panthers fans at home games, this is partially because many of Charlotte's residents are "transplants ... from NYC, Philly, Atlanta". They also observed that the stadium has scattered parking lots, each of which has a different tailgating style. Some have fried chicken, pork, or Carolina-style barbecue, while others have live bands and televisions. Pickup football games in the parking lots are common, but fans tend to "behave themselves", in part due to blue laws that prevent the sale of alcohol before noon on Sundays.
Read more about this topic: Paul Janus
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan,—mere Jonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards; because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth; because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufacturers and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... there are some who, believing that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds, and that to-morrow is necessarily better than to-day, may think that if culture is a good thing we shall infallibly be found to have more of it that we had a generation since; and that if we can be shown not to have more of it, it can be shown not to be worth seeking.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)