Saturday will be a big day for UW athletics:

• ESPN College GameDay will broadcast live from Camp Randall Stadium from 8-11 a.m. (free to the public; Gates 8 and 9 open at 6:30 a.m.).
• The Sports Illustrated Heisman Nissan Tour will feature autograph sessions with Lee Evans (1-3 p.m.) and Ron Dayne (3:30-5 p.m.) at the north practice field.
• The UW men’s basketball team will have its first “Wisconsin Basketball Field House Madness,” featuring contests, a scrimmage  and more (2:30 p.m. at the UW Field House)
• And of course, the UW football team takes on No. 1 Ohio State at 6 p.m.

In anticipation for such a big weekend, I thought it’d be fun to look back on July 12, 2007, when ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt claimed Madison, Wis., as the No. 1 college sports town on the Dan Patrick Show.

Van Pelt had spent a couple days earlier in the week in Madison for the Andy North golf tournament and went  out to the bars at night. Here are the podcasts:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Highlights:

• “I understand there’s this place called the Essen Haus … (where) you drink out of a boot. The moral of the story in Madison is a cup of booze ain’t enough–you gotta have a boot.”
• “Any bar where you go up, and when you order your drinks you can get a side of bacon … you eat it and it’s all salty and what do you do? You drink the booze out of a fish bowl. (Madison) is big on putting booze in a container bigger than a cup there.”

UPDATE: Oct. 18, 2010

Scott Van Pelt was in town for the game, and he had this to say about his return trip to Madison.

Tags: Camp Randall Stadium, downtown

This entry was posted on Friday, October 15th, 2010 at 3:50 pm and is filed under News and Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.