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The Daily Tar Heel

Grad Students Deserve Duke Tickets as Much as Seniors, Are Real Fans

In her Feb. 26 column, Kate Hartig bemoans the scalping of Duke tickets by UNC students, saying that this practice keeps deserving students from attending the game. I entirely agree.

However, I vehemently disagree with Hartig's assertion that the scalping occurs because graduating graduate students who "couldn't care less about the team or this very special game" sell their tickets.

Many graduating graduate students have been here longer than the senior undergrads. We have been to every basketball game for which we could get tickets. We take time out from teaching, working in the lab, writing proposals and dissertations and doing research to get bracelets and go to games to cheer on the Tar Heels. We also pay the athletics fee like every other student, graduate and undergraduate. While I'm sure that some graduate students do scalp tickets, I am equally sure that undergraduates do as well. My graduate years spent at UNC are very special to me -- I have been here through three head basketball coaches and three (hopefully four) Final Fours.

Hartig does Carolina a great disservice by assuming that undergraduates are the only loyal Carolina basketball fans. On the afternoon of March 4, you will find me in section 218 (my "nosebleed seat"), wearing Carolina blue, cheering like crazy for Brendan Haywood, Joseph Forte, Jason Capel, Ronald Curry, Kris Lang and all of the other Tar Heels as they try to win their first outright ACC regular season championship in my time here at Carolina.

I join Hartig in hoping that any student, undergraduate, graduate or professional who has a ticket but is not interested in attending will give that seat to another student who has waited many years to see the Tar Heels beat Duke at home. Go Tar Heels!

Leigh Shultz

Ph.D. Candidate

Chemistry

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