Norman — Someone who says “no” to hours of standing on bleachers while frying in the Oklahoma Memorial Stadium amongst a claustrophobic number of other sweaty Sooner fans oozing with OU pride seems unheard of. It’s hard to imagine that, just feet away from all the football fervor, students are hiding out from the addictive funnel of pandemonium. For those that fall under this category, don’t let the Sooner religion of football steal your day, rather, take advice from fellow sympathizers and seize it.

“If it wasn’t for the outrageous decibel levels pouring out of the stadium, I would swear I’d missed the second coming of Christ,” says Max Nicholson, filmmaking junior. “It’s like a post-apocalyptic wasteland where you can do whatever you want.”

While Nicholson understands that he is clearly in the minority by not being engrossed in Sooner football, he says he takes full advantage of the perks gamedays have to offer. While students pour out onto Campus Corner, the stadium and Lindsey Street, the normal college town hotspots are left deserted.

The list of these perks for Nicholson include: free reign of the Laundromat, short lines literally everywhere and front row seat with the bars to rest your feet on at Warren Theatre for that weekend’s blockbuster.

Damian Dartez, biochemical pre-pharmacy senior, uses gamedays to their full advantage as well. Dartez says he likes to use the weekend to visit home and see his family and old friends. Dartez adds that game weekends are prime opportunities for adventurous road trips.

“I hang with my friends who live out of the campus area,” Dartez says. “Me and my friends went to a concert in Texas one weekend, like a little road trip, it was an amazing concert and I’m glad that we went. It was an Arctic Monkeys concert.”

There are always extremists agitated by something more, and philosophy senior, Joe Christensen, is one that is simply mystified by the thought of sitting through a football game.

“I’ll go to a movie, or just rent one,” Christensen says. “Hang with some friends and have some drunken but mentally stimulating conversation. Sit by the pool, go for a walk. I’d probably have more fun cleaning up trash in the park than going to a football game.”

Not all approaches to a gameday vice are as cynically driven, however.

For the shopaholics, sweat fearing students, hitting the stores can be your cop-out to football games. With the limited shopping in Norman, less people circulating through stores on a Saturday is ideal.

“Gamedays are usually when I go to the mall,” says Hilary Ludwig, zoology junior. “It’s practically empty, which makes it really easy to shop. I can get in and out and don’t have to worry what I look like because there’s a slim chance I’ll actually see someone I know!”

While Norman can be a non-football attendee’s playground, the timing must be perfect. Dartez warns that if you don’t leave early enough or wait until the game is over, you have no hope of successfully navigating through town.

“I do not drive! I always plan my traveling before gameday,” Dartez says. “I always make sure I don’t have anything to do that day or leave campus before all of the hubbub. It gives me a migraine just thinking about the time I thought it would be okay to drive during gameday.”

Gameday escapee, Nicholson, says he agrees with Dartez on the importance of straddling the timeline of event.

“Those hours when the game is on are precious and few,” Nicholson says. “I have to be quick so I don’t get caught in the thick of all that clutter. If I do have to drive though, I always take back roads, even if they’re out of my way. I also avoid Lindsey Street at all costs.”

Just as police officers, parents and teachers taught us to “just say no to drugs” despite ridicule from peers, saying “no” to Sooner football may be frowned upon by friends and colleagues in a similar, threatening manner. But, just as there are rewards and alternatives to not doing drugs, there are the same for those uninterested in football. So this football season, don’t be put out on gamedays but get something out of them.