At 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 7, I was reminded of the melee scene from the movie "Gangs of New York." We all came in our respective groups (senior, junior, etc.) and Ticketmaster was our venue. Soon after 9:00 a.m., however, the battle royal turned into an every-man-for-himself affair.
By 10:00 a.m., people were already complaining because they didn't get PSU football season tickets. The excuses paralleled the excuses a professor hears the day a big project is due in any freshmen class: Ticketmaster kicked me off, my computer froze, I overslept, I had to work, etc.
The major problem with their arguments is that they are flawed in the sense that every one of those respective individuals will feel dissatisfied, even if the argument is valid. In the case of the afore-mentioned fray, the only people who could comment were the ones who were still living.
I was one of the lucky 21,400. But, I agree with all the displeased, there is something seriously wrong with the system.
In the past two weeks there have been a myriad of letters to the editor from alumni, students, grandparents of students, students from branch campuses and it eventually sparked a playground-esque "my PSU campus is better than your PSU campus."
In a perfect world, tickets should be free for whichever students are selected to get them, but this is Penn State and not a perfect world.
So, I have two alternatives to our current system in which the free-for-all exists.
The first: I have been brought up with the idea that seniority exists for a reason. In that system, you have to earn your privileges.
So, under my plan seniors have the opportunity to order tickets on day one of the allocation process. On day two: juniors, day three: sophomores, day four: freshman and on day five: branch campus students.
This way every main campus senior who wants a ticket can get one. So, it follows that if you graduate from Penn State: University Park, then you will be guaranteed that during at least one of your fall semesters, you will have tickets.
The process should be the same as the one in effect now, just spaced out. With less people crowding the Ticketmaster system at one time, there is less of a chance that a conflict can occur. Also, sell the tickets outside of your regular working hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
This reduces the conflict with the students who are working real jobs or internships important to their future careers during the summer.
My disclaimer: I have nothing against branch campus students, but I do follow the facts. And remember, having the opportunity to buy football tickets is a privilege and not a right of the PSU student.
Letter writer Michael Rowell pointed out that University Park students are academically superior (Wednesday), and in most cases, to attend UP in your freshman year, you must to be academically superior.
Additionally, branch campus students pay a significantly lower tuition than UP students. Plus, because of the distances between UP and branch campuses, branch campus students are more likely to either not use their individual tickets or sell them for a much higher price.
My second option: There is a lottery system, which weights seniority (sort of like the NBA draft.) This means that everyone who wants a ticket signs up in advance. Then, five tickets are put into the lottery for every senior, four for every junior, three for every sophomore, two for every freshman, and one for every branch campus student.
In order to keep the hopelessly unlucky from getting stunned, every individual who tried and lost out will receive an additional ticket in the lottery for every consecutive year they haven't had the opportunity to buy tickets.
Naturally, there are going to be people who disagree with my methods, yet how can we pick a method that is fair to and pleases the largest amount of students?
After looking at voter turnout for the student elections last year and the fact that students at branch campuses outnumber University Park students, a vote probably is not the greatest answer.
And after the immediate student protests last year, we can be assured that it will be obvious if the students are pleased after a decision is made.
So, I am proposing that all the students who received tickets this year get the opportunity to vote on how tickets are allocated in the future.
Then, as in "Gangs of New York" and history, we have a future decided by the winners of the past.
But, shouldn't it be like that anyway?
Zachariah Tomazin is a senior majoring in economics. His e-mail address is zrt5007@psu.edu.
