BASKETBALL season starts this week. Those words are music to the ears of many University basketball fans. Among the images of last year's successful season are those of students camping out at "Hooville" to get quality seats for the home games against Duke and the University of North Carolina. For those who camped out last year as I did, perhaps some of the best words to describe the entrance to the game are "chaos" and "stampede." To remedy the situation, Student Council's Athletic Affairs Committee has come up with several proposals that it hopes will add a higher degree of control to the game entrance situation. However, many of the proposal's points sound identical to last year's system. Council should reexamine the proposal and modify it to be more effective.
Council's proposal begins by delineating a group of 12 students to be monitors for the camp-out. These student monitors will have control over a list where student groups will sign up on a first-come, first-serve basis with a maximum of 10 students in a group. However, these student monitors are only students who are trying to keep order. They do not have the same authority as a police officer. One member from the group must be on the premises at all times during the camp-out to hold the spot for the group. This is the exact system that was in place last year. The proposal only makes the student monitor group official while the students who stepped up to supervise the camp-outs last year were just volunteers.
Perhaps the only proposed crowd-control policy that sounds effective is to use a wristband system to number the students in the camp-out groups by the order in which they signed up. This would enable monitors to weed out line cutters and keep track of numerical order of the camp-out groups.
Yet, the wristband policy does not address larger issues. Last year, particularly at the game against UNC, the biggest crowd control problem came from the opportunistic fans who showed up early on game day and tried to cut in front of the students who had camped out. The sheer number of fans who showed up early before the game made crowd control extremely difficult. There simply were not enough monitors to be able to effectively control the multitude of people.
According to Andrew Rader, associate athletic director of marketing, promotions and licensing, the game against UNC represented the worst case scenario in line control. Measures are being taken to change the nature of the student entrance process in order to make it more orderly and prevent similar debacles from occurring.
Still, as the UNC game illustrated last year, the possibility exists for the entrance line to get out of hand. Even with the University's and the Council's best efforts, there is no guarantee that any of the camp-out games this year won't turn into a similar situation as the UNC game from last year. With only 12 monitors during the pre-game period, they might again be unable to control the mob if similar amounts of people show up before a game.
More effective provisions will have to be made to the proposal to ensure that the seating order of the fans that camped out is honored, and that the pre-game scene does not erupt in chaos as it did last year. While the wristband system takes care to distinguish the validity and the numerical order of the camp-out group, the provisions to control the flow of fans as the doors are opened may not be strong enough to be entirely effective.
Possibly, one way to avoid the massive onslaught of fans that occurred last year when general admission to the game began is for the camp-out groups to be led calmly in through one door and admitted to the game in an orderly fashion. This process could occur an hour or more before the doors officially are opened to provide further ease in line control.
Also, Council should consider beefing up their student monitor presence on game day. Although Rader mentioned that 12 monitors sounded like an adequate number to patrol the camp ground and monitor the line, in extreme cases such as last year's games, it isn't feasible to expect 12 students to provide enough manpower to control hundreds of rowdy fans.
Council's proposal does not make enough provisions to allow a good level of control before a game. The turnout before a game can be massive, and controlling such a large number of unruly fans is a daunting task. Although students will now not be able to get away with line cutting, the proposal doesn't focus on the problem of the volume of fans that show up before a game. The proposal should be modified or rewritten to add muscle to the policies that already have been stated.
(Alex Rosemblat's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at arosemblat@cavalierdaily.com.)
Read More
BURSTEIN: Federal workforce cuts target Virginia — and Youngkin’s response falls short
By Carly Burstein | 3 days agoForcing employees to choose between uprooting their families or losing their livelihoods is not just callous — it is economically reckless.
HUYNH: Virginia’s proposed ‘whippets’ law is laughable
By Viet Huynh | 4 days agoAs people continue to be harmed by nitrous oxide abuse, Virginians will see this new law as the ineffective, ultimately harmful policy that it is.
EDITORIAL: We can demand more of our university presidents
By Editorial Board | 4 days agoWe hope for greater transparency because for the principles of solidarity in this statement to be enacted and effective, stakeholders must be treated as partners in resistance.
