Don't let them steal your seat

By Joshua D. Scroggin

The student basketball ticket-giveaway lines have the potential to be longer and slower-moving than the notorious financial aid line.

That is, if anyone ever finds out where they’re supposed to start waiting.

In case you haven’t heard, the University Student Union is giving away tickets to each men’s basketball game in the brand-new Save Mart Center to the first 2,000 students who line up. But unless you’re a USU member or a member of Associated Students, Inc., odds are that you have no idea where that line begins.

Fresno State mascot Timeout knows where to wait. He’s reportedly going to be the first student in line.

How he found out where to go before the rest of us—I have no idea.

Not to spoil the surprise, and just to let you know, the tickets will be given out at the USU Information Booth each Friday before a home game.

The first ticket drop will be at noon this Friday, where tickets to the Nov. 5 Bulldog Basketball Extravaganza (a.k.a. intra-squad scrimmage) will be doled out.

In case you also have no clue where the Information Booth is, it’s the wall you walk directly into approximately 20 feet after walking through the east entrance to the first floor of the USU building.

Hmm, 2,000 tickets and 20 feet of space? Brilliant planning if you ask me.

If this is all coming as a shock to you, you are not alone. In Monday’s issue of The Collegian, dean of students Paul Oliaro was quoted as saying information detailing how to get tickets was going to be trumpeted through a major publicity campaign.

I haven’t seen any fruits of this major campaign, but I did see someone walking in the Free Speech Area with a sign that said ‘free ticket forum’—but it was upside down.

I hope this campaign is not going to be as confusing as the ‘please don’t drink, but there’s a pub on campus’ campaign.

The fact is there have been free ticket forums scheduled in the Free Speech Area, but hardly anyone showed up to voice their opinions.

Students, let me let you in on a little secret here: These tickets might be ‘free,’ but they’re not FREE, if you know what I mean. You paid for them.

Money was taken from your USU fees to pay for the seats, and if you don’t show up to claim yours, the athletic department is just going to sell them again to someone else.

Yup, come game time, there might be someone who might not cheer as loud as you sitting in the seat you paid for. It might cost the team a game one day.

Is that what you really want?

Then go out and get your tickets. Now you know where to go. The USU info booth on Friday at 1p.m., and take your student ID.

I don’t want to see Timeout sitting in the front row at the SMC. He belongs with the cheerleaders.