I hate waiting in lines...

It’s just after 6:00AM and I’m all bundled up against the cold. I’m up this early because it’s Monday, and Monday means football tickets are distributed to students. One of the benefits U of O provides students is a free ticket to every football or basketball game. The catch is, however, that there are only a limited number of tickets available and it’s first-come, first-serve, so if you’re too late then the tickets will likely have all been distributed.

This week’s football game is against the Cal Bears, who are ranked in the top 10 nationally. If that didn’t make the game big enough already, ESPN’s national TV show, College GameDay, is making an appearance in Eugene and broadcasting live from Autzen Stadium. The point of all this is to say that the line for tickets this morning is ridiculously long. I’ve been to every home football game for the past two years, and the only other time the line has been this long is when Oregon plays USC. I think the reasons for the super-high-turnout are twofold: first, the Cal-Oregon game is the biggest game on the college football landscape this weekend. There will be considerable buzz about two 4-0 teams meeting. The second reason is that all of the undergrads just moved back onto campus over the weekend. That means their classes are just starting and everyone is excited to do the “college thing,” which for some people means camping out for football tickets.

Usually I work on Monday mornings, but I have a feeling that I won’t make it in to the office until 10:30 or 11:00. But at least I’ll be clutching a prized ticket to the football game – gotta have your priorities in order.

UPDATE AT 1:00PM - It took me a full six hours to get tickets. I got into line at 6:00AM and finally got to the ticket window at noon(disclaimer: tickets didn't start to be distributed until 9:00AM).


This morning's football ticket line. You can see that lots of students have blankets/sleeping bags, etc with them.

Note: This is a cross-post from that other blog.