Okay, let be honest. Fans are a great part of the atmosphere of Utah football games, most notably the student section. However, anyone who has actually attended a game and sat in the student section can tell you what is really up with “The Muss”. Just show up half an hour before kickoff and you can obviously see where the true “Fan Club” is. The two taped off sections reserved for the “fan club” are practically empty when the team comes out for warm-ups. Meanwhile, the rest of the student section is already more than half full. By kickoff, the student section is pretty much packed, except for those seats reserved for the “fans” whose section is at best half full, and of those students a large portion aren’t even officially in the “fan club”, but are gutsy enough, and care enough about getting a good seat that they sneak down there anyway. Why not? It’s not like the “fan club” cares enough about the team to show up before midway through the first quarter. I wouldn’t mind showing up an hour early and sitting on row 40 if the 39 rows below me were filled, but they’re not. They are empty except for rows 1 and 2. At kickoff, the tape dividing the rest of the students (those not willing to jump the tape) break through the tape and fill up the remaining empty seats in the “fan club” section, although now there are Event Staff that have the nerve to come around and verify that people have their “fan club” tickets. Everyone who looks at the student section after kickoff assumes that all these seats are being filled by members of the 1500-strong “fan club”, when really most of them are filled by regular, old loyal U students who weren’t willing to cough up an extra $20 to watch the games that they already paid $45 to see. Anthony White says “I think they should give the fan club another section.” Why? So then it would be obvious that none of them show up before the game starts? Jake Olson says “in the student section, you see that sea of red which is the football fan club”. Can only “fan club” members wear red in the student section? No. There are a lot more of us who aren’t in the “fan club” than those who are. We care a lot about the football program, and for years have always come out to support the team, despite not wanting to pony up again for seats. Don’t get me wrong, I support the idea of a student fan club. But why make them pay to show that they are true fans? If some of the students want to pay $20 to get matching T-shirts and have tailgate parties, fine. But I don’t see why they should get preferential seating over those of us who don’t still live with mommy and daddy who hand out twenties every weekend as allowance. At least the basketball fan club has some standards to qualify someone as a fan. They have to attend 90% of the games. If you applied this same standard to the 1500 members of the football “fan club”, you’d be hard pressed to break the 500 mark, and that’s being generous. That’s all I ask for, some reality pills for those who think that all of us up there in red are part of the real fan club. The true fans are the ones willing to show up an hour early each game to fight for less than the best seats. I feel proud to be a member of that Fan Club. So, in final, GO UTES. I love Utah football. If I didn’t I wouldn’t care one bit about how student seating is handled. But I do care because I have always been and will always be a UTAH MAN, sir. Will be til I die. Ki-yi.
Jacob TrippSenior, Computer Science
