The football game day situation at N.C. State is getting ridiculous. Repulsive pat-downs, thousands of students being hoarded through two gates like cattle and just the general disgust at the fact I’m getting treated differently because of something that happened three years ago between four non-students. I’m offended and downright disgusted with how N.C. State treats their future alumni.
A terrible shooting happened in 2004, but I’m not sure any of the measures in place today would have prevented that from happening. Cutting tailgating hours from infinite to five isn’t going to prevent people from getting drunk. If someone really wants to get that intoxicated before a game, trust me, they will regardless of how long the University tells them they can sit in a tailgating lot. The only thing that the restriction on hours prevents is the proper cooking of a pig beforehand.
The ticket situation is another example of brilliance in government-run institutions. Several thousand students get tickets, not normal tickets but electronic tickets with bar codes and these tickets have to be scanned and then the student has to get their hand stamped with the appropriate section designation since we have general admission seating.
All of this leads to massive congestion that has result in delays getting into the game anytime reasonable before the first quarter ends. To top it all off the gates for these tickets are on the other side of he stadium. I’m not going to complain about the walk, because I could probably use the exercise, but wouldn’t it have made more sense to put the student gates near student parking? Pat-downs are ridiculous. Getting into the game as a student already takes long enough, and now they’re going to set up stations where four people at a time at two separate gates must walk up to an Event One staffer, empty their pockets or purse, lift their shirt and then be patted around the waste looking for whatever harmless contraband they can find.
Reports about girls being patted down around the waste by males are more embarrassing than last year’s incident where students had to pee in their seats because Event One staffers wouldn’t let them leave the section. I’ve been going to games for 20 years and never once when I sat with my parents was I subjected to a “pat-down” or did I have to wait in some absurdly long line to get into the game.
What’s unfortunate about the whole situation is that students are hamstrung as to how we can control the situation. Twenty-year-olds aren’t big donors (yet), and the money we do contribute to athletics is involuntary through the fees that get brought up every year.
Yes, there is a fee committee set up through Student Government, but the ultimate decision lies in the hands of the administration. Now before the administration comes to the students demanding more athletic fees this year to fund their ever growing bureaucracy — with rules and regulations they need to take student’s welfare into consideration.
Quit treating us like criminals — stop patting us down. Give us something to show for the increased amount of fees we pay every year, like more student gates. I’m tired of having to jump through hoops to go to a game and if this continues more and more students are going to stay home and listen on the radio rather than subject themselves to demeaning “pat-downs” by some Event One staff member.
What are your thoughts about game day? E-mail your thoughts to [email protected].
