Awesome that SUB/the ticket office caved. It’s the right thing to do and all of the grad students are thankful.
However, please take a look at your role in this matter. You are a pretty public ND figure these days. At NDNation they are discussing how you and your wife, if you win, are going to run right out to LA in your crimson and gold, sitting in the middle of the ND student section and cheering for the Trojans. You are the cliche for why grad students were locked out of this in the first place! If you win, there will be many unhappy and bitter campers, undergrad and graduates alike. If you insist on going to the game, why don’t you get your tickets through USC? Your entering this lottery just ’cause you can is making the rest of the graduate students, ND fans most of us, look bad since you insist on being so public with your USC loyalties. Thanks for your help (if your letters helped) with the protest and the ultimate decision of SUB/the ticket office, but come on, have some sense of what’s right in this situation.
Seriously. Brendan, I usually find you quite reasonable, but I have to admit it’s a little declasse to act like it’s some huge injustice that you can’t enter the lottery for USC tickets so you can go sit in the ND student section and cheer for USC. Not that you’re not just as entitled to tickets; but this story is making rather big news and I would expect that you’ll end up something of a target.
You may not have heard, but the game is sold out. However, if I get tickets through the ND lottery, I will endeavor to find a Notre Dame fan who is sitting in a general seating area (near USC and ND fans alike) who would be willing to trade. I’m sure there’s someone out there would like to sit in the ND section, and I certainly don’t have any special desire to antagonize 298 fellow Domers in the ND section. I just want a ticket to the game.
I’m just curious, are you Domers arguing that the ticket office should institute a policy such that grad students who went to undergrad at the university’s opponents are not allowed in the lotteries? Or do you just wish to discriminate solely against those who went to USC for their undergrad?
What we are postulating is that Notre Dame gets a limited number of tickets and as such those tickets should go to ND fans. Brendan is a Trojan first and foremost and as such should not be using the ND allotment of tickets. I don’t care if he plans on swapping them with someone already in the stadium because that still dilutes the number of Irish fans in the stadium. It is more plausible that Grad students would resort to such lack of loyalty than undergrads and as such I (and obviously many other Irish fans) believe they should receive the tickets.
In all instances, I’m both a Trojan and a Domer. However, in this instance I’d be rooting for the Trojans, yes. Doesn’t make it wrong for me to describe my fellow Domers as “fellow Domers.”
It is more plausible that Grad students would resort to such lack of loyalty than undergrads
Is it? Is it really? Can you prove that, or is it just an assumption/prejudice? From what I understand, there have been an awful lot of undergrads selling their tickets to the highest bidder in the last couple of years — regardless of which team that bidder is rooting for. See, e.g., the Fiesta Bowl last year. Hence the ticket office instituting new policies making it harder to sell tickets on eBay. I would argue that such behavior is far more “disloyal” than trying to get myself a ticket to the game between my two favorite teams, when I am in fact a Notre Dame student.
In any event, if there was actually a written policy — based, necessarily, on the honor system, and equally applicable to grads and undergrads — that said, “all student tickets to away games should be used only by students and guests who are rooting for Notre Dame,” then you know what, I would follow it. I believe in following the rules. But absent such a policy, I’m not going to single myself out on the basis of some nonexistant unwritten principle that I shouldn’t buy a student ticket that I have every right to buy, in an environment where others routinely sell their tickets, bring guests who are not ND fans (e.g. friends/family who root for the other team) or don’t particularly care about the Irish (e.g., boyfriends/girlfriends), etc.
Andrew, I am by no means advocating some sort of bizarro policy against grad students who went to certain schools, just imploring Brendan to consider what is ethically correct in this particular instance. Unfortunately for him, due to this blog he is publicly an “Irish Trojan” who has stated over and over again that he’ll always choose USC over ND, so he is completely reinforcing the undergraduates’ and naysayers’ fears of what can happen when they open the lottery to the supposedly less deserving grad students.
And, Brendan, regardless of the game’s sold out status, there are always ways (albeit expensive ways) to obtain tickets - eBay, ticket brokers, showing up to the game and purchasing from last-minute sellers, etc. You don’t have to go through this lottery. Just saying.
“Ethically correct”? Hahaha. Perhaps I should consult Pope Benedict’s encyclical on ticket lotteries. Seriously, do you guys realize how silly you sound sometimes? We’re talking about FOOTBALL TICKETS!
I am a student here, and a Notre Dame season-ticket holder to boot. As such, I have as much of an “ethical” right to enter the lottery as everybody else. I simply don’t buy the argument that there’s some abstract ethical principle, in the absence of any actual rule, that I’m violating. If I didn’t attend every home game* and root like hell for the Irish, but was just using the lottery as a way to enter to attend my only ND game ever — rooting against the Irish — I could see your point a bit more. But as it is, I see nothing “unethical” about an ND student season-ticket holder wanting to attend the biggest game of the year.
I can certainly understand you all rooting against me. But it’s not “unethical” for me to, well, root for myself.
Oh, and of course I “don’t have to” get my tickets from the lottery. But neither do you, or any other entrant in the lottery. I’m guessing, though, that neither of us can afford to buy tickets on eBay, which is why we’re entering the lottery. Not sure why we’re talking about that.
*except the Stanford game, when I was out of town for a wedding
P.S. That said, you may have a point about one thing… perhaps it was poor judgment for me to liveblog waiting in line at the ticket lottery. Given that I’m “a pretty public ND figure these days,” and that this reaction was predictable, perhaps I should have kept a lower profile in this instance. Oh, well. Too late now.
UPDATE: Upon reflection, I realize my 7:30 comment opens me up to some accusations of hypocrisy, given that I myself was rather upset “about FOOTBALL TICKETS!” yesterday, arguing that it was ethically wrong for grad students to be excluded. Let me clarify. I don’t think it’s inherently ridiculous to suggest that a discussion of football tickets has ethical ramifications. Of course not. If someone is breaking the rules and thus disadvantaging his/her fellow students (e.g., people blatantly defying the rules at the Fiesta Bowl lottery last year), that’s wrong. I also think it’s wrong to discriminate against a whole group of students, treating them as if they aren’t really students on the basis of nothing more than their status as grad students, and prejudices that attach to that status. What I think is ridiculous is the notion that there’s some unwritten ethical standard, above and beyond the actual rules, that individuals should hold themselves to when deciding whether they individually “deserve” to buy tickets.
I think the essential point is that, no matter what you are entitled to as a graduate student, you will be preventing two Notre Dame fans from going (most likely). You’re right, this has nothing to do with ethics, but it is kind of a jackass move on some level don’t you think?
I would expect a Notre Dame alum at USC Law School to do the same thing when the game is in South Bend, and I wouldn’t think that’s a “jackass move,” either.
Anyway, it’s a moot point now. I didn’t win. Break out the champagne, ND Nation folks. :)
That said, I think the people on ND Nation are insane. It’s one thing if they want to criticize something you wrote, but it’s terrible how personal they get when attacking you.
You Domers are fucking retarded. Look, lotteries and tickets don’t exist to pack the stands with as many ND fans as possible; that is simply a secondary impact from the primary impact, which is to get students an opportunity to attend the games. I know it flows naturally and logically that students of University X will be fans of University X and root for University X in the games, but loyalties are secondary and every student of University X ought to have an equal chance to attend the game — whatever his/her ultimate loyalties are. Suppose I grew up loving Cal but went to Stanford because it is a better school — and then went to every football game to root against Stanford. Would it be fair for Stanford to carry a policy (written or unwritten) that would prevent me from getting tickets to games (home or away) that any of my fellow students could get? Hell no that ain’t fair. It’s my right as a student to root for whichever team(s) I want, and I should have the same rights as all those other students around me. No school will have 100% student loyalty; Notre Dame is pretty high in having maybe 99.9% loyalty. Just because Brendan happens to be the .1% who is different doesn’t mean he has any less rights or opportunities than you guys.
What a civil post, Andrew. Given your apparent inability to understand the point of the posts here, perhaps your development should be called into question. The point of the original post was not that there should be a policy against people with other allegiances being in the lottery, but that it is bad PR for grad students, who are often accused of not caring or of having split allegiances. I don’t think it really matters either way, but it gives ammo to those who want to keep grad students out of the lottery. Can you comprehend that basic point, as it was posted by Anonymous 3L above–that Brendan’s blogging about how he wanted to get the tickets so he could go root against ND would only hurt the cause for allowing grad students to get tickets? Or should someone draw you a diagram? As for anyone who actually argues that grad students who went to school elsewhere should be banned from the lottery, they are being unreasonable.
That said, I think the people on ND Nation are insane.
LOL. I couldn’t agree more.
It’s one thing if they want to criticize something you wrote, but it’s terrible how personal they get when attacking you.
Thanks, I appreciate it… but it really doesn’t bother me. I learned long ago not to take (most) ND Nation posters seriously. Their propensity to go straight to the gutter whenever I come up, attacking me and Becky in the most juvenile manner possible, says nothing about us and a great deal about them.
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November 1st, 2006 at 4:40:59 pm
Brendan,
Awesome that SUB/the ticket office caved. It’s the right thing to do and all of the grad students are thankful.
However, please take a look at your role in this matter. You are a pretty public ND figure these days. At NDNation they are discussing how you and your wife, if you win, are going to run right out to LA in your crimson and gold, sitting in the middle of the ND student section and cheering for the Trojans. You are the cliche for why grad students were locked out of this in the first place! If you win, there will be many unhappy and bitter campers, undergrad and graduates alike. If you insist on going to the game, why don’t you get your tickets through USC? Your entering this lottery just ’cause you can is making the rest of the graduate students, ND fans most of us, look bad since you insist on being so public with your USC loyalties. Thanks for your help (if your letters helped) with the protest and the ultimate decision of SUB/the ticket office, but come on, have some sense of what’s right in this situation.
November 1st, 2006 at 5:07:27 pm
Seriously. Brendan, I usually find you quite reasonable, but I have to admit it’s a little declasse to act like it’s some huge injustice that you can’t enter the lottery for USC tickets so you can go sit in the ND student section and cheer for USC. Not that you’re not just as entitled to tickets; but this story is making rather big news and I would expect that you’ll end up something of a target.
November 1st, 2006 at 5:38:36 pm
Who’s “Todd Richard Branch?”
November 1st, 2006 at 5:43:50 pm
why don’t you get your tickets through USC?
You may not have heard, but the game is sold out. However, if I get tickets through the ND lottery, I will endeavor to find a Notre Dame fan who is sitting in a general seating area (near USC and ND fans alike) who would be willing to trade. I’m sure there’s someone out there would like to sit in the ND section, and I certainly don’t have any special desire to antagonize 298 fellow Domers in the ND section. I just want a ticket to the game.
November 1st, 2006 at 6:06:33 pm
298 fellow Domers
Wouldn’t you be a Trojan in this instance?
November 1st, 2006 at 6:31:16 pm
I’m just curious, are you Domers arguing that the ticket office should institute a policy such that grad students who went to undergrad at the university’s opponents are not allowed in the lotteries? Or do you just wish to discriminate solely against those who went to USC for their undergrad?
November 1st, 2006 at 6:37:31 pm
What we are postulating is that Notre Dame gets a limited number of tickets and as such those tickets should go to ND fans. Brendan is a Trojan first and foremost and as such should not be using the ND allotment of tickets. I don’t care if he plans on swapping them with someone already in the stadium because that still dilutes the number of Irish fans in the stadium. It is more plausible that Grad students would resort to such lack of loyalty than undergrads and as such I (and obviously many other Irish fans) believe they should receive the tickets.
-Joe
November 1st, 2006 at 6:58:52 pm
Wouldn’t you be a Trojan in this instance?
In all instances, I’m both a Trojan and a Domer. However, in this instance I’d be rooting for the Trojans, yes. Doesn’t make it wrong for me to describe my fellow Domers as “fellow Domers.”
It is more plausible that Grad students would resort to such lack of loyalty than undergrads
Is it? Is it really? Can you prove that, or is it just an assumption/prejudice? From what I understand, there have been an awful lot of undergrads selling their tickets to the highest bidder in the last couple of years — regardless of which team that bidder is rooting for. See, e.g., the Fiesta Bowl last year. Hence the ticket office instituting new policies making it harder to sell tickets on eBay. I would argue that such behavior is far more “disloyal” than trying to get myself a ticket to the game between my two favorite teams, when I am in fact a Notre Dame student.
In any event, if there was actually a written policy — based, necessarily, on the honor system, and equally applicable to grads and undergrads — that said, “all student tickets to away games should be used only by students and guests who are rooting for Notre Dame,” then you know what, I would follow it. I believe in following the rules. But absent such a policy, I’m not going to single myself out on the basis of some nonexistant unwritten principle that I shouldn’t buy a student ticket that I have every right to buy, in an environment where others routinely sell their tickets, bring guests who are not ND fans (e.g. friends/family who root for the other team) or don’t particularly care about the Irish (e.g., boyfriends/girlfriends), etc.
November 1st, 2006 at 7:14:50 pm
Andrew, I am by no means advocating some sort of bizarro policy against grad students who went to certain schools, just imploring Brendan to consider what is ethically correct in this particular instance. Unfortunately for him, due to this blog he is publicly an “Irish Trojan” who has stated over and over again that he’ll always choose USC over ND, so he is completely reinforcing the undergraduates’ and naysayers’ fears of what can happen when they open the lottery to the supposedly less deserving grad students.
And, Brendan, regardless of the game’s sold out status, there are always ways (albeit expensive ways) to obtain tickets - eBay, ticket brokers, showing up to the game and purchasing from last-minute sellers, etc. You don’t have to go through this lottery. Just saying.
November 1st, 2006 at 7:30:28 pm
“Ethically correct”? Hahaha. Perhaps I should consult Pope Benedict’s encyclical on ticket lotteries. Seriously, do you guys realize how silly you sound sometimes? We’re talking about FOOTBALL TICKETS!
I am a student here, and a Notre Dame season-ticket holder to boot. As such, I have as much of an “ethical” right to enter the lottery as everybody else. I simply don’t buy the argument that there’s some abstract ethical principle, in the absence of any actual rule, that I’m violating. If I didn’t attend every home game* and root like hell for the Irish, but was just using the lottery as a way to enter to attend my only ND game ever — rooting against the Irish — I could see your point a bit more. But as it is, I see nothing “unethical” about an ND student season-ticket holder wanting to attend the biggest game of the year.
I can certainly understand you all rooting against me. But it’s not “unethical” for me to, well, root for myself.
Oh, and of course I “don’t have to” get my tickets from the lottery. But neither do you, or any other entrant in the lottery. I’m guessing, though, that neither of us can afford to buy tickets on eBay, which is why we’re entering the lottery. Not sure why we’re talking about that.
*except the Stanford game, when I was out of town for a wedding
November 1st, 2006 at 7:32:21 pm
P.S. That said, you may have a point about one thing… perhaps it was poor judgment for me to liveblog waiting in line at the ticket lottery. Given that I’m “a pretty public ND figure these days,” and that this reaction was predictable, perhaps I should have kept a lower profile in this instance. Oh, well. Too late now.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:03:10 pm
UPDATE: Upon reflection, I realize my 7:30 comment opens me up to some accusations of hypocrisy, given that I myself was rather upset “about FOOTBALL TICKETS!” yesterday, arguing that it was ethically wrong for grad students to be excluded. Let me clarify. I don’t think it’s inherently ridiculous to suggest that a discussion of football tickets has ethical ramifications. Of course not. If someone is breaking the rules and thus disadvantaging his/her fellow students (e.g., people blatantly defying the rules at the Fiesta Bowl lottery last year), that’s wrong. I also think it’s wrong to discriminate against a whole group of students, treating them as if they aren’t really students on the basis of nothing more than their status as grad students, and prejudices that attach to that status. What I think is ridiculous is the notion that there’s some unwritten ethical standard, above and beyond the actual rules, that individuals should hold themselves to when deciding whether they individually “deserve” to buy tickets.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:25:40 pm
I think the essential point is that, no matter what you are entitled to as a graduate student, you will be preventing two Notre Dame fans from going (most likely). You’re right, this has nothing to do with ethics, but it is kind of a jackass move on some level don’t you think?
November 1st, 2006 at 8:37:18 pm
No, I don’t think.
I would expect a Notre Dame alum at USC Law School to do the same thing when the game is in South Bend, and I wouldn’t think that’s a “jackass move,” either.
Anyway, it’s a moot point now. I didn’t win. Break out the champagne, ND Nation folks. :)
November 1st, 2006 at 8:43:30 pm
That said, I think the people on ND Nation are insane. It’s one thing if they want to criticize something you wrote, but it’s terrible how personal they get when attacking you.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:48:19 pm
You Domers are fucking retarded. Look, lotteries and tickets don’t exist to pack the stands with as many ND fans as possible; that is simply a secondary impact from the primary impact, which is to get students an opportunity to attend the games. I know it flows naturally and logically that students of University X will be fans of University X and root for University X in the games, but loyalties are secondary and every student of University X ought to have an equal chance to attend the game — whatever his/her ultimate loyalties are. Suppose I grew up loving Cal but went to Stanford because it is a better school — and then went to every football game to root against Stanford. Would it be fair for Stanford to carry a policy (written or unwritten) that would prevent me from getting tickets to games (home or away) that any of my fellow students could get? Hell no that ain’t fair. It’s my right as a student to root for whichever team(s) I want, and I should have the same rights as all those other students around me. No school will have 100% student loyalty; Notre Dame is pretty high in having maybe 99.9% loyalty. Just because Brendan happens to be the .1% who is different doesn’t mean he has any less rights or opportunities than you guys.
November 1st, 2006 at 10:28:17 pm
What a civil post, Andrew. Given your apparent inability to understand the point of the posts here, perhaps your development should be called into question. The point of the original post was not that there should be a policy against people with other allegiances being in the lottery, but that it is bad PR for grad students, who are often accused of not caring or of having split allegiances. I don’t think it really matters either way, but it gives ammo to those who want to keep grad students out of the lottery. Can you comprehend that basic point, as it was posted by Anonymous 3L above–that Brendan’s blogging about how he wanted to get the tickets so he could go root against ND would only hurt the cause for allowing grad students to get tickets? Or should someone draw you a diagram? As for anyone who actually argues that grad students who went to school elsewhere should be banned from the lottery, they are being unreasonable.
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:01:52 am
That said, I think the people on ND Nation are insane.
LOL. I couldn’t agree more.
It’s one thing if they want to criticize something you wrote, but it’s terrible how personal they get when attacking you.
Thanks, I appreciate it… but it really doesn’t bother me. I learned long ago not to take (most) ND Nation posters seriously. Their propensity to go straight to the gutter whenever I come up, attacking me and Becky in the most juvenile manner possible, says nothing about us and a great deal about them.