Theory and Practice

The football record this season has cast a self-satisfied glow over the College which even the holiday week has not dispersed. But with this new strength, understandably a source of pleasure to H.A.A. officials, has come reports of some related weaknesses in their department. When the Faculty Committee on Athletics meets in several days, tickets--their distribution and subsequent use--will head its agenda.

After a perfunctory, surface investigation, the Administrative Board only too readily has handed the problem of ticket abuses down to the Faculty Committee on Athletics. It is important that this committee should not be similarly anxious to sloughs off a thorough examination of ticket ethics and practices. Equally important is the manner and tone of such an examination. The deans fear that football players and managers may have been scalping their complimentary and preferred football tickets. And it seems a realistic fear. Instead of taking active steps against repetition of these wrongs, however, the dean's office issued a great deal of moralistic bombast, only making it more difficult to get complete information.

Selling complimentary tickets is, of course, undeniably wrong; it is a violation of Massachusetts and Federal law. But the deans have never stressed these considerations in past seasons. Now, when disclosures show that some players have yielded to temptation, University Hall is suddenly aroused and thunders of ineligibility and severed connections. Many of the offenders learned for the first time that ticket brokerage was more than slightly shady; most of them will not repeat their violation.

Problems in Method

Planning constructively for next year, the Athletics Committee has two main problems to meet. They must devise a system for keeping complimentary seats off the ticket market. Less urgent, they must work out a method for systematic handling of student tickets, avoiding both favoritism and needless crowding.

The Committee can study the workings of other colleges for its first solution: many have found a gate list the easiest answer. Under such a plan, football players leave, before the game, the names of persons to whom they are giving complimentary. At gametime, those on the gate list pick up their tickets, while their names are checked off. This method cannot eliminate scalping completely; no system can if players and managers are determined to subvert it. But, coupled with the warnings sounded this year by the deans, a gate list could be an effective deterrent. In any event, players deserve complimentary tickets and this is the surest way to prevent these tickets from illegal change of hands.

In the matter of general student distribution, the mail order plan, held up only because of the Administration's reluctance for wandering bursar's cards, is the best answer. If Student Participation tickets were issued each term and punched in place of bursar's cards, there would be no further objection. First-come-first-served, always a wholesome theory, will be practicable under the mail plan. A relatively minor detail, but one to consider, is the problem of a student in one grade who wishes to sit with a friend in a younger class. Juniors, for example, who want to go to the game with sophomores should be allowed to buy tickets with the sophomore class. This would be more fair than the present system, in which both such juniors and sophomores must wait until the open period at the end of class days.

The Athletics Committee has major problems, but they are problems with ready solutions. By studying this year's ticket abuses to improve the distribution system rather than to fume indignantly, the Committee can benefit from this season's unfortunate disclosures.