Goal Line Stand

The moans and muttered whispers, audible from soldiers Field to Andover Hall, have been increasing in volume as more and more of the undergraduates taking guests to the Holy Cross football game discover the deplorable location of the seats to which they have been assigned by the H.A.A. ticket office. Seniors and Freshmen alike are discovering that their right to two or three "preferred" seats means only that they are permitted to watch the game from somewhere inside the gates. Literally hundreds of students will be bravely cheering from sections 39 and 40 or seats even further into the southern end-zone oval; while the best that men with dates can hope for is to find themselves in section 36, which is on the 10 yard line.

While the prehistoric design of the Stadium starts the ticket scramble off with an initial handicap, the real villain of the piece is a procedure for issuing student tickets so antiquated that its origins can be recalled only by the preadamites of the H.A.A. Tradition has it that the cheering sections must be kept inviolate--no women allowed. Under the present system this means that when a student turns in his H.A.A. ticket as payment for one of the seats for his date and himself, his former seat is resold to any male who can produce the requisite ante. Large blocks of choice seats are justly reserved for families or friends of squad members, for former Varsity Club members, for Harvard men who have not purchased H.A.A. tickets, for season ticket holders, and for alumni.

The result of this system of ticket allotment is that at any game which draws a large attendance--and those are the ones he most wants to see--the undergraduate-with-date is relegated to the bleak outlands; and he will continue to get the same treatment unless the seating plan is revised. The H.A.A. could profitably consider the system which is now used by Michigan and a number of other large mid-Western colleges. Students are issued season coupon books rather than assignments to a particular seat. Men desiring single seats to any given game are required to exchange their coupons for tickets ten days before the date of the game. A solid cheering section is thus secured. Remaining tickets in the preferred sections are then sold to students who are taking guests. The inauguration of this plan or a modification of it would preserve an all male cheering section and give the ever increasing number of men who find games a wonderful place to bury dates, a chance to see both goal lines.