20 non-students have lower-level hoops tickets

When the UA men's basketball team resumes its home schedule next Saturday against Marquette, non-students will be sitting in some of McKale Center's best student seats.

The registrar's office confirmed last week that 20 of the names on the list of Zona Zoo lower-level student ticket lottery winners belong to people who are not currently enrolled in classes at the UA.

The tickets were distributed by the athletics department last month in a new ticket lottery that is part of the Zona Zoo Sports Pass, a first-year program the department's Web site describes as "the UA student pass to Arizona Athletics."

The pass, which costs $40 and gives a holder entry into all regular-season UA athletics events except for men's basketball games, was intended to be the "next best thing" to a student section, said ASUA spirit director Peter Wand.

"(We wanted to) unite students with T-shirts," he said.

"Yeah, (a CatCard) is all they asked for," he said.

Diane Tatterfield, assistant director of CatCard services, said that the CatCard office issues the card to students, faculty and staff, as well as to affiliates of certain departments who are sponsored by staff.

She estimated that 90,000 CatCards are in circulation.

The UA's total enrollment is 37,083, according to UA Decision and Planning Support. That means that approximately 53,000 non-students hold CatCards.

Tatterfield said that it is possible to verify enrollment status by scanning a person's CatCard, but that a department needs prior authorization in order to access student information.

The Student Recreation Center has a system in place that confirms student status by swiping CatCards, said Juliette Moore, the director of Campus Recreation.

Though some non-students received Zona Zoo tickets, most of the students who bought Zona Zoo passes did not.

Senior associate athletics director Chris Del Conte estimated that 7,200 passes had been sold. Of those 7,200 Zona Zoo members, 1,500 were picked in the lottery for the program's lower-level seats.

Matthew Kelson, a Zona Zoo member and regional development senior who did not receive tickets, said he thinks Zona Zoo needs to be changed to prevent non-students from getting tickets.

"I think it's just irresponsible for a system to be like that," he said.

Del Conte said that any changes to the pass would have to come from ASUA.

"Zona Zoo was not created as an athletic entity," he said. "So if any changes will happen, they will come from (ASUA)."

Wand said that the program still has issues that need to be addressed, but that ASUA was not at fault.

"That's on the athletics ticket office," he said. "We definitely plan on taking a look at the whole program this year in order to make it better next year."

-Brett Fera and Shane Dale contributed to this report.