The ETSU athletic department is putting students last in the NCAA ticket game, Student Government Association officials said Tuesday.
By not setting aside enough student-only tickets for the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament, ETSU is showing a lack of respect and consideration toward students, states a resolution that was passed in a unanimous vote by the SGA.
“All we’re doing is saying ‘Hey, where are the students in this picture?'” said Sen. Ethan Flynn, who sponsored the resolution after learning that no tickets were set aside specifically for students.
The resolution states that “the students of ETSU are very proud of their basketball team, and … feel disappointed by the lack of consideration and lack of respect that ETSU has demonstrated in this matter.”
However, the director of business operations for the ETSU athletic department, Adam Walton, said that tickets for the event were few and far between, making the issue seem more unfair than it actually is.
The NCAA limits the number of tickets it distributes to each school because of the size of the arena and the number of teams involved in the event.
“We requested 550 tickets -that’s the maximum any school competing in the first round can get,” said Walton. “In the last few days, we’ve had requests for approximately 4,000 tickets.”
Of the 550 tickets the athletic department received, the majority were distributed among the team’s corporate sponsors, private donors, alumni contributors, university administrators and the families of coaches and players.
Approximately 250 remaining tickets were sold to ETSU fans “on a first-come-first-serve basis, with some priority given to faculty, staff and students,” said Walton.
But the SGA still wants a procedure to be put in place for students who want tickets.
“I think students should be the No. 1 priority,” said Flynn. “It just seems like ETSU is putting everyone else ahead of us.”
The sold-out tournament will be held in Columbus, Ohio, where the ETSU men’s basketball team will compete in the opening round against the University of Cincinnati.
In other matters, the SGA introduced a resolution that, if passed, would ask ETSU administrators to seek student input for any future fee increases and to notify students when fees are increased.
The resolution, sponsored by Senators Josh Shearin and Chad Oliver, was written in response to a controversial $20-per-credit-hour fee increase on upper-level business classes. The fee was implemented last fall in the College of Business and Technology by the Tennessee Board of Regents.
The resolution will be discussed and voted on at the next SGA meeting.
“This piece of legislation arose from the business fee and the concerns it unearthed. I became troubled by the overall lack of input from the affected students. Shearin said. Suprisingly this has occurred before; those affected by the digital media fee only received consideration after many concerns were raised with the administration; business students received far less. I just feel that concerns need not be raised in order for the students’ voices to be heard; students’ concerns and input should be considered regardless,” he said.
Also of note, the SGA offered a sneak peak at the voting procedure for the 2004-2005 elections. The online elections take place on March 23 and 24 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Students can go to the ETSU web page at www.etsu.edu, then click on a special link.
To vote, students must enter their Goldlink user name and password. A list of names and pictures will pop up, instructing the user to either select a candidate from the list or write in a candidate.
Write-ins must include the student’s full name and ETSU email address.

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