Is it just me, or does student seating at the football game suck? Not only are the students forced to file into two entrances on one side of the stadium, but once they get in, the system for actually seating students is ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that the size of the section has shrunk dramatically.
When I started as an undergraduate six years ago, the football games were still marginally accommodating to students. Student tickets were purchased just like any other ticket, each holder was assigned a specific seat which could be reserved in blocks with friends, and we could enter the stadium wherever the hell we wanted. Today, they don’t assign individual seats because the physics implied by comparing the number of tickets sold with the amount of space allocated to students simply does not compute.
And why can’t we enter and exit our section at will? Once a section is closed, students cannot re-enter that section once they leave. What kind of bullshit is that? Why should we be treated like cattle?
The situation would be far less egregious if students were allotted tickets for free or at an extreme discount. But we are not! We pay a ton of money to watch our parking lots mobbed, our ‘dry campus’ inundated by littering alumni, and our power going out on a Thursday night during midterms (see Nebraska vs. Mizzou, 2010). Of course, this is not to mention the fact that the university allowed police officers to arrest 30 fans (ALL students) rushing the field while 12 hours later offering commemorative pictures of the celebratory mob for profit.
Those who know me will confirm that I am a freakishly fervent college football fan. I love the game, and I love this school. But with the obviously corrupt, plantation-style nature of major collegiate athletics, this university cannot afford to simply dismiss the students as an inconvenience at football games like they do with all of its other endeavors.
I know parents and alumni give money. Very few of them give more than the $30,000 per year sum that most students are responsible for. I am ashamed that my alma mater puts parents, alumni, and above all money, ahead of its students.
-Blake Lawrence, bmlt28@mail.missouri.edu
University of Missouri- School of Law
University of Missouri, BA 2010