Dear N.C. State University Administration, especially the Department of Athletics:
Stop lying to the student body.
We are sick and tired of the problems associated with student tickets for football games. This is not a student problem – this a problem that was created by the administration when they moved away from “real” student tickets to “fake” print-out copies with barcodes.
These problems are not new. The same situation that occurred at the Boston College game took place last year at the Virginia Tech game. It is not like no one knew about it – I wrote about it in Technician :
“It was a scene from a European soccer match. Hordes of students waiting nearly an hour to enter Carter-Finley’s gates for Sunday night’s football game against Virginia Tech. It got so bad that the police were called in to calm the growing throngs of upset students. Students were pushed, shoved and a few trampled. And we owe it all to a LAZY athletics department.
The chaotic student situation was in sharp contrast to other fans’ experiences. They had had the luxury of entering the game without standing in line. Some were even treated to elegant dinner buffets with elaborate cheese displays and crudités dip.
Why then were students corralled into one line like herds of cattle in preparation to be slaughtered? That wasn’t the end of the misery.
After students made it into the game they were confronted with an overcrowded student section. At some point after the first quarter, stadium officials decided to close-off section eight, the main student seating area. What students didn’t know is that once you left that section, perhaps to use the rest room or to purchase a delicious tub of popcorn, you were barred from returning – even with a valid ticket. This placed a number of students in an awkward predicament. Use the bathroom or lose the seat? A female student asked a campus police officer what she should do. The officer’s response: ‘If you want to remain in the section, use the bathroom at your seat.’
The situation became hairier as students demanded to know why they couldn’t return to their seats. With only a few police officers and two event personnel at the entrance of section eight students began to protest. They chanted ‘Let us in…let us in…let us in!’ At least one student was carted away by Wake County Sheriff officers.
Why did this occur? One frustrated student hit the nail on the head: ‘Our money is no good here.’ The NCSU Athletics Department does not care or respect students because we don’t shell out exorbitant amounts of cash to see our fellow students play a game.”
All that happened last year, but yet now students are the ones being chastised for the current situation? The bottom line is this – students are considered second-class citizens by the Department of Athletics and we are receiving no support from the University’s administration. It’s a sad reality but it is the cold hard truth.
School officials continually lie about the number of student tickets available to the general student body. In Saturday’s News and Observer, administrators failed to reveal that the published total number of student tickets includes the tickets for the band, cheerleaders, student athletes, recruits and the players’ families.
Last year the Athletics, in conjunction with Student Government and the Division of Student Affairs, decided to switch to an online ticket distribution system. The move was prompted by the “Voucher Gate” scandal, where several Student Government officials stole hundreds of vouchers that could be used to obtain tickets to men’s basketball games.
So the Athletics and more specifically the athletic ticket office used the ticket scandal as an impetus to make their lives easier. They never liked the old system of distributing student tickets because they actually had to do some work.
I don’t blame them. I would hate to have to leave the lavish digs of the Wolfpack Club and travel to Reynolds Coliseum to sit in a booth handing out REAL tickets. Now athletics doesn’t have to do anything. And if any problems arise they simply say – “talk with Student Government.”
Each student pays $119 in athletic fees – so we deserve better. We deserve an athletics department and administration that works on behalf of students. The old ticket system worked. It just required a few people to actually do some work.
My name or another student’s name may not be on the stadium, the football center or the new towers – but I shouldn’t have to urinate on myself to enjoy seeing my fellow students play a football game.
E-mail Andrew at viewpoint@technicianonline.com
