Friday, June 18, 2004
 
Marquette Doesn't Try to Panhandle From Me

It's true, but I don't get pleas for money from the university from which I graduated. Why is that? Because I think stories like this represent the mindset of most universities, whose staffs only want development (more money) at the expense of tradition and respect?
    Any true fan of the University of Missouri would not be surprised to hear this tale of how the University of Kansas treats its fans.

    Max and Jackie Kennedy had front row seats in Allen Fieldhouse from the day it opened in 1955. Jackie kept the tickets even after Max died last year. "The hardest thing I had to do was walk in that field house without him," she said.

    But the school told Jackie, 74, that if she doesn't donate $58,500, the seats will be sold to someone else.

    Kansas isn't entirely heartless. They offered her another set of seats. Near the top row. "But it's not like we're tossing her out of the place," said an associate athletic director, Jim Marchiony.

    Kennedy is outraged. "I'm not sitting anywhere else," she said. "I think it's blackmail. It's just unbelievable to me that this is happening."

    Of course, fans who have to sit in bad seats have a different take. "We have probably some of the worst seats in the house," said Janis Holiwell, of Topeka. "We've been making donations every year, and they're not small donations. ... I know they've sat there a long time. But we pay the same amount of money and we sit in very poor seats."

    Mizzou wouldn't treat such loyal fans so shabbily. Why, all Mizzou is charging is a one-time donation of $25,000 for up to eight seats and an annual donation of $5,000 a seat.

    Oh, you also have to buy a season ticket. That's about $816.
Shut your traps, Bobos, and respect your elders. It pains me to have to say it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:21 PM
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