University of South Carolina Libraries
TICKE .. . 1 BY IIAlIt1' F. SMITIISON AND JAMES S. POPE BEING AMONG the many students denied the right to attend the Notre Dame game, we decided to personally investigate the cir cumstances which brought about this injustice in an effort to do all in our power to prevent its recurrence. Our first stop was the "Roun dhouse" or Athletic Office, where we were given rough estimates as to how many tickets were distributed to whom. We asked for and received the "Official Blueprint" or Coliseum chart with color schemes showing actual distribution. We then proceeded to add up all the small numbers at the end of each row in an attempt to arrive at the exact distribution figures. There are a few discrepancies (our total number of seats is 35 short of the official total of 12,397) due to inability to read some of the microscopic numbers on the chart. BELOW IS our final tabulation of ticket distribution reflected on the chart, which the ticket manager assured us was a highly accurate representation of ticket allotments at each game: Student Tickets: Pep Band - 58; Student Govern ment - 132; Roost Athletes - 247; General Student Body - 5,254; for a total of 5,691 student tickets. Non Student Tickets: Visting Team - 25; Football Coaches and Recruits 60; Athletic Staff and families 104; State Legislature - 275; Faculty, Administrative Staff and . ................ ................ Don't i or the Vote fc Hear Feb.2 FS [USC Must Stop C Employees, and Basketball Player's Guests (4 to each varsity member) 1,506; Gamecock Club members - 4,701; for a total of 6,671 non-sttudent tickets. This means that 54 per cent of the seats are promised to non-students before any students are assessed their mandatory fees at registration. Next a visit to the office of the Associate Vice-President of Finance, Benard Daetwyler. He told us 13,235 full-time students paid the mandatory activities fee (part of which subsidizes the athletic program), and 543 of the school's part-time students elected to pay the fee for a total number of 13,778 whose fees contributed to the athletic program of the University this semester. Daetwyler expressed his firm conviction that the athletic program should be for the students, but contended only through season ticket sales can a successful program be financed. IF SUCH is the case, then the University has but one alternative: It must stop coercing student payments for rights which it has already decided to sell. The University has indicated in its student handbook that purchase of the activities fee entitles a student to tickets: "Each student may pick up two tickets by presenting his ID card and fee receipt plus one other ID card and fee receipt." Carolina Com munity, page 28, pt. 6. The ac tivities card itself says "Keep this card for ...athletic events, " and is surrounded by 21 spaces which rote for the cai candidate with r the candidal all the Pre 8 at theG, It's your choi4 oercing Student PA' Monday, represent different athletic even according to officials in t treasurer's office. The Nol Dame game was represented space number five. Purchase the card in January should purchase of the right to have th< 'spaces punched in Januar February and March. BUT, TIE UNIVERSI' replies, any idiot can see that the is no way 13,000 students can into only 12,000 seats. Our fii answer to that is it's not c problem - it's yours. It's you w are in the business of selling t same seat to two people. It's you who are in the busine of taxing students for benefits y cannot deliver to them. It is y who have represented to t students in your own handbc addressing university regulatic to us that all with fee cards wot be able to attend the games. The second answer to t theoretically-all-of-the-studei can-never-go-to-the-same-game argument is that practical speaking, such a stituation woi never occur if there is strict ( forcement against assigning II to non-students by facial id( ididate who the best posi ~e who can ai sidential ilden Spi :e. Make it an int4 Payments On Alret is GE 4 Feb. 25, 1974 a ts, tification at the gate and sub- t he sequent refusal to cash in non- f ,re students' holding of student tickets tj by at the box office. The most liberal t of estimates of those turned away a be from the Notre Dame game, the s se biggest athletic event here in i y years, are 1500-2000 students. f No, it is not because of the r rY hypothetical possibility that all of i re us who have paid fees may want to ( fit go the same game that we are c st rooked out of our seats. It is ur because before we are even t ho assessed fees for those seats, 54 per 11 he cent of them have already gone to f state legislators (who pay nothing s ss for theirs), alumni, faculty, r ou President Jones (who gets 56 for s ou his own personal use) and other r he assorted VIP's and their wives, L ok kids, aunts and uncles, none of c ns whom had to subsidize the r ild University's athletic program, and t yet most of whom are arbitrarily c he given VIP status at the expense of I it- the average student who:se con- r tribution was involuntary. i ly IT IS ONLY because the - ild University forces 13,235 students n- to pay for 5,691 seats that students )'s waited for hours before being shut t m- out of the Notre Dame game, and it hakes your han< ters iswer your questi candidates ir 8:00 p.m. alligent choice. dy-Sold Tickets for precisely the same reason iat a similar rip-off is likely for ie Pitt game on Wednesday. Until the University allows oluntary student payment of the ortion of the semester fee which oes to athletics, or allows a roportional rebate to those who ttempted to get tickets for the alue of the game ripped off, it is bligated to furnish seats to all hose who have paid the activity ee and are willing to go through he present ordeal of 54 per cent icket distribution. The only other lternative is to have the non tudents whose support of athletics ; purely voluntary take their seats irst; then, each student, whose aandatory fee has conferred upon im the same rights, may enter the oliseum to sit on the VIP of his hoice. THERE HAS been recent con roversy over whether a university as the right to assess collective ees for activities which individual tudents know in advance they do ot wish to support. But even if uch authority is presumed, it can Lever be contended that a niversity not only has a right to ollect such fees but an additional ight to deny the students the very enefits for which the fees were ollected! An institution has no egitimate authority to tax with its ight hand for the benefit of goods t has sold to others with its left and. It has no such right - only the ower. Students have power, too. It's ime we asserted it. . ....... viv. I the most tons: a Thurs.i