Editor:
For four years I have been attending the UA football games, so heading to the game Thursday, Sept. 7, was again a pleasure. My brother, my friends and I walked to the game at around 6:00 to insure good seats and enjoy the activity before the game. We seated ourselves in the student section on the 50-yard line and smiled with anticipation of stomping on Georgia Tech. More and more people filed in as game time drew closer. At 7:07 the game started and by the end of the second quarter the UA was down a few points but the spirit in our section was electrifying. All of a sudden a group of fifteen people came filing down the aisle and stopped in front of us and said, "You're in our seats." Actually, to get the facts straight when the game started we all stood on the seats in front of us (which somebody started long ago and somehow it stuck) so technically we weren't in their seats. But as the 3,000 students behind us did the same thing, none of us were technically in our seats. Okay, now that that is specified I'll get back to the point. I'm standing there with fifteen people staring up at me as if I had stolen their dog or said mean things about their mother. I calmly explained about the seat technicality and also that it was the end of the second quarter in the center of the student section on the 50-yard line; not happy about this, they left to get a security guard. It took them awhile to find one but finally they came back and we were asked to leave. So, the four of us are standing on the aisle next to a security guard (not the one who kicked us out) who had various people come up and say, "Hey, those guys are in my seats and they won't move." The security guard simply stated, "If I make them move then they'll make someone else move, and then someone else, etc., besides it is halfway through the game." My brother, friends and I look at each other and agreed. First of all, if these people had come before the game we would have moved and still been able to find seats. As it was, there were no seats except in the nosebleed section on the other side of the stadium. Second of all, this was the center of the student section where no one actually has tickets to sit there. I could have asked the 50 people that surrounded us if they actually had tickets to sit there; I can most assuredly state that the answer would have been "No."
So to those people I would like to say if you really want your seats you should arrive when all of the other 50,000 people arrive. Either that or take your chances, we were kind because I actually saw other people in other areas get in fist fights because of this such action.
To the UA I propose a rule that states after the first quarter all ticket seat assignments are null and void. I mean, even restaurants have a 15 minute cancellation rule and if these people were such die hard fans they would have shown up earlier.
Kellen Jones
Retailing and Consumer Studies Senior