Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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< X ' A x / * | go pnoo ?caro"",,n u LJii I IV?/V-^ , 'V. Friday Volume LXIX, No. 67 University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C. Sept. 29, 1 978 ?P*T^F"r^H "1M Iicket s tsglSil |V3HbbBSU9X&^KB^B^S^v ' ^0B A shortage jj^ggaBBiMraMBii angers s j Georgia game a Si \ 6nothing < By Brett Friedlander Asst. Sports Editor There were 11,000 student tickets allotted for the Georgia game this weekend. However, all available tickets ; were gone by 2:30 Wednesday, leaving several hundred full-time students who had latepickup times without tickets, according to athletic department officials. University Ticket Manager Rav * 0 Faircloth said, "Student tickets are allocated on a control-release method. When they run out, they're out ?no matter what. There is nothing anyone can do." \ STUDENT GOVERNMENT President Seamus O'Boyle was notified of the situation late Wednesday afternoon by angry students who came to his office to complain. "The athletic department is not willing I tn hnnrl nvpr mnw tinlrote fHo chiHontc i because it is more profitable to sell I them/' O'Boyle said. "Besides, most of the time, all tickets are not picked up anyhow." I . While O'Boyle said the situation was i unfortunate, he also explained that student ticket distribution chairman Joe Tiller, SG vice-president Garry Norris and himself were going to look into the - matter as soon as possible. 9 Norris said he was "deeply disapoointed" about the situation. He com pared the distribution of student tickets i to the practices of overbooking by the , airlines. "They overbook because they ^ know everyone is not going to show up to pick up their ticket," he said. "It just backfired on them today." 1 BOTH O'BOYLE and Norris said the i athletic department allotted 12,000 3 tickets for the students a few years ago. & ml_ J at. ^ I _ #ji a! _1 * _ # . *. a I iney saia uie leuover ucKets irom ine students were then sold at the gate on the day of the game. O'Boyle did not know when or why the j allotment was cut to 11,000, but he said he I would work to get the extra 1,000 tickets | for student use. "The only way to do | something like this," he said, "is to 13 petition to the athletic department. The extra tickets would have kept this from happening today." Faircloth said it was up to the Board of Trustees to change the student allotment. He added that the athletic department a was locked into the current allotment I because of season ticket sales and tickets g allotted to other schools on the football P schedule. "We have our priorities in ticket distribution," he explained. 44We look at f everyone concerned. The students get top - priority on one side of the field, while f Gamecock club members get first g priority on the other side. Then comes .1 season ticket holders, opponents, faculty and then, last of all, the general public." STUDENT REACTION to the matter was immediate. "We've got a right to the tickets because we paid for them." Gay Arrants, a senior criminal justice tudents ?llout; \ my one can do9 : major said. "Why should they sell them to someone else when we paid for them?" Another student, Tim Meetze, said his pick-up was at 10 a.m., but he had a class during that time and could not get in line to pick up tickets until all of the tickets were gone. "If you think this is bad," he said, "wait until the Clemson game. People will be camping out days in advance and ?t:il ? ii.bot ?? suit nut uc aasuicu ui gcriuiig a ulkci. Others who were denied tickets explained how the athletic department was geared to the alumni instead of students. "They will have problems with future alumni," one student said, ?4 because of the way they treat us now." UNIVERSITY TREASURER Howard Rhodes said this situation is sad, but said he can offer no help to students. He said no refund of the student activities fee can be given because "the student is not entitled to a ticket automatically." He said, "They (students) are only entitled to what is available. And only 11,000 tickets were available." Rhodes explained that an activity fee of $66.50 is included in each full-time student's fees. Dart of which ffoes to the athletic department for tickets. He said the administration allocates all or part of this fund to whatever it deemed necessary. By comparison, USC's student ticket distribution differs from other big-name football programs in the South, such as Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana State University, LSU and North Carolina, UNC. AT GEORGIA, a school with a total ??11 ? ? C no AAA lUn cm uuiuciu ui i^,uuu, uic amicus department allocates 14,396 tickets a game for students. If a student wants a ticket to the home games, he must first pay a $15 Student Athletic Fee. He then has the option of buying single tickets or a season booklet at one dollar per game. At Tennessee, a similar system of ticket distribution to USC's is used. The only difference in their system from Carolina's system is that 20,000 student tickets are allocated. LSU and UNC's systems are similar. At LSU, each student pays an athletic fee before the season starts. They are then admitted into the game (in a 14,400 seat student section) just by showing their student ID card. A UNC official said that their ticket distribution plan is about the same as LSU's, the only difference is that no student will be turned away. CHAIRMAN of the USC Faculty Athletic Advisory Board, Dr. Peter Becker, said to his knowledge, Wed nesda> was the first time all student tickets were used up on the first day of pick-up. While he gave no immediate solutions for the problem, he did say he would meet with the athletic department to try to ensure all students would be able to get tickets in the future. "One cannot know how many students will get tickets until after the pick-up," he said. "The game this week has a lot of importance, so naturally a lot of people sri> Oninfl tn wont ??? " ^ ^ C?v*"? W TT U1U W ^U.