By Solomon Crenshaw Jr., Alabama News Center
Ramsay High School Principal Cassandra Fells wanted to dismiss school early Dec. 2 as the Rams headed to Auburn to play for the Class 6A football championship.
“I know we took two busloads of fans from the school and others who drove,” she said. “I would say we had well over 5,000, if not a little more who showed up for Friday night’s game. Now, Opelika, they closed school down. They had an early dismissal for all schools Friday, all schools in their system.”
Ramsay’s 21-16 victory over Opelika for the Class 6A championship was the final title contest of the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s 2016 Super 7. It was also the game with the largest attendance.
That game pushed overall attendance to a record 49,353 for the three days of play at Auburn University’s Jordan-Hare Stadium. That total was more than 4,000 more than the 2015 Super 7 at the University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium and more than 8,000 more than the 2014 Super 7 in Auburn.
AHSAA Executive Director Steve Savarese said attendance greatly depends on the teams that qualify for the championship round.
“This year, we had many single-school communities, such as Opelika, Fyffe, Handley, which is in Roanoke, and Beauregard,” he said.
This year’s Super 7 featured a pair of near hometown squads in Beauregard and Opelika. Each is in Lee County.
“I definitely think that was a factor,” Savarese said.
Another factor was schools that had never qualified for the football championships before. Those schools included Wenonah, Ramsay and Beauregard.
“Any time you have those schools where it’s a first-time experience, it creates another level of excitement,” Saverese said.
