Students paying for many bad decisions with tickets

TO THE EDITOR:

There are many reasons why the current ticket policy and seat locations are in place. Accountability seems to be a foreign word to many young people today, and it may not seem fair, but you are being held accountable for numerous bad decisions made by previous students.

Bad decision number one, and it was mentioned in the Margolis column (“Put ticket policy in hot seat,” Jan. 20), was voting down the small student fee increase (about $10 per semester) to help fund the Smith Center more than 25 years ago.

Bad decision number two was the rampant scalping of student tickets for the big money games (Duke, State, etc). This ultimately led to the infamous pink student tickets, which made it much easier for the people at the door to identify them and check for IDs.

Bad decision number three was bringing along friends from other schools. This is one of many things that ultimately led to the current policy of one ticket per student.

You may not think it is fair that the students don’t get all of the courtside seats. Well, I don’t think it is fair that I was just a few years out of college when the Smith Center was built, so I couldn’t afford the $25,000 required to get lower level seats.

My seats are in the upper deck, along with many of the student seats, but there are two huge differences. I have to pay for my tickets, and I actually show up for every game.



Tom Hicks
UNC ’78