Early birds get the good seats

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor dark of night will keep the dedicated Gonzaga student from rocking at the Bulldogs’ basketball showdown against Washington State at The Kennel on Wednesday night.

“You can always watch the games but you only have limited chances to experience it,” GU sophomore Kelcie Butler said. “The trick is to get a bleacher seat. When the students are stomping, it’s rocking. It’s not the same higher up.”

That’s why Butler and five of her friends set up a tent Thursday night to get tickets, which was nothing compared to the Sarah Chapman group.

Chapman and her friends pitched their tent three days earlier, an unofficial school record, to be first in line when the 1,200 student tickets for the game between two ranked rivals were distributed Sunday night.

After their student ID cards were activated for entry into the game, many groups continued to camp to be first in line for the best general admission seats, though the tents moved from the south side of Martin Centre to the north side of McCarthey Athletic Center.

“When you paint your stomach, when you do all that stuff, no one notices if you’re three or four rows back,” said Chapman, who will be the red-headed “Z” in the front row when the 17th-ranked Bulldogs (7-1) tip-off against No. 8 WSU (7-0) at 8 p.m.

“We wanted the best seats possible for the biggest game on campus this season,” said Matt Delsman, a sophomore from Sunnyvale, Calif. “It’s just a lot of fun going to the game. The school spirit is amazing. I love being part of it.”

Delsman had just awakened from a nap in the No. 1 tent while the others were in class or drying out and warming up in the dorm.

Alexa Larsen wasn’t so lucky.

One of the residents of Tent 29, Larsen, a sophomore from Seattle, was literally holding down the tent as the wind whistled out of the west.

“Even though every seat in The Kennel is a good seat, this is crazy,” she admitted, adding that her replacement tent sitter – who could also help her secure the tent – was late.

Her group lined up at 5 a.m. Sunday, 12 hours before the students get their ID cards activated for game entry, and decided to stick around to get a good seat.

According to David Lindsay, who is in charge of student activities, a tent city has never formed that early for tickets and then remained to get good seats. The rules are no more than six students per tent and one must be in the tent at all times.

There were reportedly 44 tents set up for tickets and 53 on Sunday night for seats, although about 20 bailed out overnight because of the wind and rain. Melted snow put many tents in small lakes.

“The wind was blowing so hard it lifted up part of our tent and my air mattress,” said Butler, who is from Omak.

Her friend, Kelly McClellan of Spokane, bailed out about 2 a.m. because everything was saturated.

“This is a summer tent,” McClellan said. “My mom’s coming through; she’s bringing us another tent.”

Casey McCoy, a sophomore from Los Angeles outside Tent 3, said his tent had 6 inches of water in it Monday morning.

Butler and McClellan mentioned a desire to see the Cougars fall, but that’s only part of the reason the students have gone to such lengths to see the game, according to Lindsay.

“It’s three things,” Lindsay said. “It’s the Cougars; it’s neat to have a team from your backyard; and you have a Cougar team that is so good.

“What we’re seeing is just a much more rabid student body. What we’ve noticed in the last two years, last year’s freshman class and this year’s freshman class – they’re very enthusiastic fans. It’s just their personality.”

And the tickets are free – sort of.

“Gonzaga is one of the rare schools to give complimentary student tickets,” Allison Keck, assistant ticket manager who oversees the student distribution, said. “There is no athletic department fee (as part of tuition). The value is what is put into obtaining the ticket.”

Students cannot sell or transfer their tickets because they are tied into their ID cards, but season ticket holders don’t have that limitation. Although it’s printed on the tickets that they cannot be sold for more than face value, that doesn’t stop entrepreneurs.

One season ticket holder sold two tickets for $400 a month ago – then promptly turned around and bought four tickets for Gonzaga’s game against No. 10 Tennessee in Seattle Dec. 29 and made a two-night reservation in a swank hotel. He said he had heard the going rate now is $400 for one ticket.

Another, who would go to the game if he could, said he had almost 30 e-mails in three hours Monday after making his tickets available online.

Although he was offered $250 for the pair, he was also considering giving them to a woman who wanted to take her husband, who was home from Iraq – if he could confirm the story.

A fair number of tickets were available on the internet, along with people looking for them.

Some of the students had different concerns, such as justifying their actions to parents paying tuition.

“They just told me to not get sick and stay warm,” Butler said. “They think I’m crazy.”

Larsen said, “My parents yelled at me for not studying, but I can read – when I’m not holding my tent down.”