Only 1,000 Tickets Left to Be Distributed

But Wednesday morning, students began to gather as early as 5 a.m. for a different sport -- football.

Twelve hours later, distribution officials had to cut off the line with 200 people still waiting for tickets to Saturday's football game against East Carolina University, said Carolina Athletic Association President Reid Chaney.

By the time the dust settled, only 1,000 student tickets remained -- more than 11,000 were distributed Wednesday.

"This is probably a first, to give out 11,000 tickets in one day," Chaney said.

When the box office opened at 8 a.m. more than 500 students lined the side walks. Many students waited in line for more than three hours to get tickets.

"That was insane," said sophomore James Baley, who said he waited for three hours and 18 minutes for tickets. "It was worse than basketball ticket distribution."

Ticket office and CAA officials said they were prepared for the rush but did not expect the 12,000-plus tickets to sell out until Friday, the last distribution day.

Chaney said the ticket line moved more slowly than it does for basketball because students are allowed to bring four UNC ONE Cards instead of the two allowed for basketball distributions.

The general admission tickets to the ECU football game sold out months ago, Chaney said."We have never really played ECU in any sports before, and they are a huge in-state rivalry," he said.

The ECU ticket distribution is the second and final time that students will be required to get tickets before a home football game. The first was the Florida State game two weeks ago.

The students in line -- dressed in flannel pajamas and holding books for the morning classes they skipped -- waited impatiently. And when the line started to move, it crawled a few steps at a time.

At 10:30 a.m., about 300 people were still waiting, and there were more than 200 students in line until 5 p.m.

Head football coach John Bunting came out to rally the troops at 10 a.m., telling them the team would need this support on Saturday. Bunting also sent pizza to the people in line at lunchtime.

"A number of people asked me where the doughnuts were, so I one-upped (men's basketball coach Matt) Doherty and got some pizza," Bunting said, referring to an incident last year in which Doherty provided snacks for students waiting in line for basketball tickets.

Baley said waiting in line all morning was worth it."It is going to be a big game, and we are going to win."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.