Good moves. Maybe they get a bigger sundeck or add some seats along side the sundeck.

A nice gesture, I'll admit. Unfortunately, they do NOT have attendance numbers for the last three years, because last year was the first time student attendance was electronically recorded.

A noble effort marred by a bold-faced lie.

Shame on you, Steve Lopes.

And of course, the worst part is that we are not going to get more student seating until the football team is terrible again.

Argh.

Lori S. White, where have I heard that name before? Oh right... In the 11/16/05 Daily Trojan she writes that the athletic department would never again change parts of the spirit card without working with student senate.

Interesting to note, there is no apology in any part of that letter and no acknowlogement of wrongdoing; only an acknowledgement of the concern. When no one accepts responsibility, there-in lies the problem. This letter tries only to further justify "someones" thinking that if we take one years average of student attendence, then we should have an accurate number. Forget the fact that activity cards sold out last year as well. Wouldn't we all like to know how many students would purchase spirit activity cards if they could? Could it be 13-thousand, 15-thousand, 20-thousand? Who knows? We certainly will not find out this year. But, it is important to realize that while all of this seems negative, there will be a positive outcome if not this year, then maybe next year or in years to come. I will have graduated by then, so I can only hope that there is a better future for the students that will take my place. But the real lesson here is to take responsibility. It is a lesson that certainly no one from Athletics has learned and it looks like Dr. White has yet to learn it as well. Because if no one has done anything wrong, then how will we ever know who is right?

Simply go back to a ticketing system for student seats.

The Monday - Thursday before each home game, require students with Spirit Cards to come into the SC ticket office to swipe their card for an assigned seat on a first come first served basis (not a lottery). The first students that come to the ticket office get the best student seats. Students can get their tickets individually or as a group.

Then, at the game on Saturday, those students with tickets can only enter the Coliseum at the Student Gate with a ticket AND their Spirit Card.

Since students will have their tickets in hand, there will not be a mad rush at the student gate to get in the stadium. This ticketing system will alleviate the congestion and chaos at the student gate on gameday, but will still reward dilligent/die-hard students with good seats if they get to the TICKET OFFICE early in the week.

The ticket office will have to hire more employees, but I am sure there are students on financial aid they could hire on work study.

Additional benefits to this method:

(1) Assigned student seats will keep people with bad tickets from sitting in the student section (Fresno State fans last year), thus keeping all student seats available for students.

(2) If there are any extra student seats available after the student cut-off day on Thursday, USC can sell those tickets to the general public at the Coliseum on gameday. A little extra revenue is always good......

(3) Students will not be able to scalp these student tickets on ebay because people will only be able to enter the Coliseum with a student ticket if you also can swipe a SC Spirit Card. The only scalping will occur between student and student.

The plan seems so simple that it will probably never happen.

This just in. Steve Lopes claims that more students attended last years game against a Stanford team that at that time was 4-3, than against 9-1 rival UCLA? Get real, pull out some new numbers and try again.

Jason's right. More USC students at a home game hosting Stanford than UCLA? If you're going to lie Mr. Lopez and Ms. White, please make it at least plausible.

I don't find this response by the university at all acceptable, not when reportedly 12,000 spirit cards were sold to students. How is raising the number of student seats by 600 offset an extra demand of 4,000? Are they saying that on average, there are 4,000 student no-shows to a game?

This problem may not go away and it may lead to a potential tragedy. The letter reads more like a stubborn attempt by administrators to save their pride than to actually think about the students.

Seems like a lot of things are happening to put a scar on what should be good times for the USC football program.

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." -- Charles Dickens

I just graduated from USC in May and from the looks of it, not a moment to soon. I have always felt that USC treated its student sections as second class citizens.

At football games, everybody rushes to get seats because people save them by the rows. When students complain, the people in charge of the section ignore pleas for help. Assigned seating groups for every game, just like the UCLA game last year, if done the week before the game, would easily prevent this. Plus, the university could sell the seats not claimed by a specific deadline.

As for the situation outside the gates, two years ago against California a similar situation occurred where students rushed the gate, because they refused to let students in when they said they would. This was when guest tickets were still sold and my 83-year-old grandfather was getting crushed. All I wanted to do was take him to a game with me. I don't blame the students for getting mad, I blame DPS and the university for its disorganziation.

As for basketball games, almost every university has its student section in the front row along the endzones or along one sideline at least one row behind the scorer's table. At USC, the students are three rows and a walk way behind in the endzone. I know not many students showed up to games, but that was because Henry Bibby ran a horrible program and students became discouraged. Last year, the athletic department started Trojan Fever, which I thought was a success, and it had a small group of rabid fans who showed up every game. They should have had the three rows of seats directly behind the visiting basket at the Sports Arena. It isn't too much to ask since in the early 90's the students sat around the court. Hopefully, this will change with the Galen Center and the students endzone seats will begin at the edge of the court.

Ultimately though, the situation deals with money. The athletic department is a seperate entity from the university and makes its money through ticket sales and donations. I have no problem with them shrinking the student section if students do not show up, but they fail to realize that without the students there would be no football or basketball team. There is a happy medium that needs to be reached and unfortunately the athletic department is far from it.

The school failed to make the right decision.
When Mike Garret took over as AD, he took away front row of student seats at basketball games. Now this fiasco as school tries to maximize revenues. USC need to realize the importance of student supporting the teams instead of trying to bring in more $.

Will some of you people stop being so spoiled. All these letter blasting the Universities efforts. The school messed up and they know it. They have laid out plans to do something about it. We have a great football program that is attracting large crowds. Along with that comes logistical problems. The University made an honest attempt to try to accommodate the expected number of Students. This was the 1st game. It wasnt quite the right plan but they will make improvements.

My goodness from some of the comments on this blog you would think the Administration was UCLA or the some other enemy school. The school will make the adjustments. They are determined to do that. In the mean time lets stick together as Fellow Trojans, from a top notch university, with a top notch football team.

Fight On

More students probably attended the Stanford game than the UCLA game because the Ticket Office does a lottery for seats. So that $135 students pay does not guarantee a seat at the season's biggest game.

I find it very interesting that administrators would fail to plan ahead and have crowd control as a top priority. Why is it so important to search purses for alcohol and not as important to ensure lines are orderly and safe? It doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize that 7000+ people may need more than 15 DPS/Security personnel.

On the issue of seating and tickets, I completely understand the need to estimate the number of students who will actually attend games. Ok, so they got the numbers wrong. All they have to do is admit the mistake and correct the numbers. But, they already got the students' money from the activity cards. They will probably say everyone knew there was never a guarantee of getting into a football game...perhaps they will argue that the card is for basketball as well. That is true but the real draw is football.

The bottom line is simple: in order for there to be a strong home field advantage, students need to be able to go to games and feel safe doing so. They need to feel appreciated by the school or ESPN.com will get far more student action than the coliseum. They need to have good seats. And they need to be included in decisions that affect items they have paid for.

I, like so many other alums, will be watching to see how the administration handles this situation. If they continue to fail, I would imagine my wife and I may find that donations to a fine institution led by nitwits a little less desirable.