The time was 5:25 p.m. last Wednesday — more than 60 hours before tip-off. According to the Person Tracker, brought to us by our beloved “Geckshow,” there were 175 people already waiting outside the Viejas Arena Ticket Office. It had begun.
Allow me to recreate what I assume is a very familiar situation for many of you. You’re sitting at home, it’s Wednesday night on Feb. 23 and you’re anxiously checking Facebook and / or Twitter, texting the people you are planning to camp out with. You knew you would have to camp — there was just no getting around it. But, the plan was to show up sometime on Thursday, and only have to sleep on the concrete for one night.
However, soon enough, word spreads quickly about the number of fans who are choosing to play it safe, in order to make absolute sure they secure tickets to the biggest, most highly anticipated basketball game of the season. You decide to do the same. Because you, unlike the hundreds of soulless cutters, understand that if you want something bad enough, you have to put the time in. You have to pay your dues.
It breaks my heart to see the way you were robbed on Friday morning. You stuck it out and faced the elements in support of your team.
You rose to the occasion and dedicated the time, energy and mental sanity it takes to do something like that, and saw no return on your investment. This fact in and of itself is hard to swallow, but what’s even more sickening is that the people who jumped in line late Thursday night and early Friday morning seemingly find nothing wrong with what they did.
According to an article in The San Diego Union Tribune, after a student had sent a mass text expressing disappointment in the number of SDSU-BYU tickets being sold on Craigslist, one of the responses read, “Here’s something to cheer you up. I didn’t even wait in line. I cut the front at about 6:15 this morning after waking up in my dorm this morning. Now get a life and don’t text me.”
Who raised you? You’re something subhuman — probably a BYU fan. In fact, you aren’t even worth taking up anymore of my word count, so I’ll just stop here.
Sadly, this blatant disregard for human civility proved to be a pattern Friday morning. I was roughly the 300th person in line on Wednesday night — when our group neared the ticket office Friday morning, we were told by a security guard there were only 800 tickets left. Of more than 2,500 available, you do the math.
Something that was supposed to highlight the spiritedness and dedication of SDSU, “The Show” and Aztec Nation as a whole was completely and utterly spoiled. The picture of immense pride and loyalty to our basketball team that all of the major news stations were trying to paint for the last five days now feels like a fraud.
To the people who cut: What you did was reprehensible and morally disgusting. Your behavior undermined everything this last week was supposed to represent. Those were not your tickets, and as far as I’m concerned, this is not your team.
Aztec fans, next time you camp out for tickets, get to know the people around you. Ask how many people are in their group and don’t be afraid to check in with each other. After all, they’re there for the same reason you are: They care. Watch out for each other and have each other’s backs if you see a group taking cuts. This doesn’t have to happen again.
—Melissa Weller is an interdisciplanary studies senior.
—The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.
