Exactly seven weeks to the day, University Stadium will open its doors for its first-ever football game at the University of West Georgia when the Wolves play host Lambuth University on Sept. 5.

And on Monday, fans can begin purchasing season tickets for the 2009 season, which will undoubtedly be a historic one for West Georgia Athletics.

While donors to the West Georgia Athletic Fund have secured many of the priority seats, chair-back season tickets for sections 202, 203 and 204 are available for $60 and season-ticket bleacher seats are available for just $50.

Additionally, WGAF Tailgate/Hospitality passes are available for $50, and a WGAF Parking Pass is also $50. The latter two items are available to WGAF donors only.

UWG Associate Athletic Director Eddie Duffey said the response to the new stadium has been tremendous thus far, noting that the athletic department has fielded tons of calls regarding the upcoming season.

“We’re very excited and we have great, great hope that come September 5th when our guys come running out on the field that they’ll be coming out into a packed stadium,” Duffey said. “Certainly all indications are leading in that direction.”

The first-ever Wolves Caravan, which wrapped up Thursday evening in Fayetteville, proved to be a great help in spreading the word and excitement about the upcoming season for not only football, but all UWG sports.

“We had just a tremendous response from that,” Duffey said. “We feel like we have reached hundreds of people by going throughout the state. We feel like we’ve made some connections and relationships that we perhaps otherwise may have not been able to reach on a personal basis with a face-to-face conversation. The response has just been overwhelming.

“We’re getting contacted on a daily basis with people who have expressed their interest in our program and becoming involved with West Georgia Athletics.”

UWG second-year football coach and interim Athletic Director Daryl Dickey agreed that the Caravan stops this summer have been a great help in getting out and generating a buzz about the university.

“It was just real exciting to be able to get out and to reach out to some of our alumni and friends of the university on our Caravan tour this year,” Dickey said. “We had seven stops that were very exciting and a lot of fun. Hopefully we are generating a lot of excitement about the new look our university has.”

And you can imagine that Dickey is as excited as anyone about finally coming out on his own home field in front of the fans on Sept. 5.

“Well, that’s just going to be a great moment for our university and for our community that’ll be coming up on September 5th,” he said. “We’re excited about the season-ticket sales that we’ve had up to date. We look forward to the ticket sales that are going to be coming in the future and giving the opportunity for everybody to be involved.”

Duffey said there are still some good seats remaining, and though the large majority of the priority seats have been secured by donors to the WGAF, anyone that wants to contribute to the fund can still secure some of the remaining priority seats.

“I would encourage a person that is interested in purchasing football season tickets to act as promptly as possible to be able to secure seat location,” Duffey said.

Anyone interested in purchasing season tickets can call Duffey at 678-839-3962 beginning on Monday.

“These are exciting times. It’s a special time,” Duffey said. “We are just thrilled to be able to offer this to our fans, our university and just this whole part of the state of Georgia.”