By: Alex Heaton
USC students have been upset about ticketing problems at the last two home football games, and a new policy that is being considered has many of them even more upset.
The university is considering plans to turn the current general admission student section into assigned seating starting in the 2012 season. That plan was unveiled Tuesday by USC Vice President of Student Affairs Jerry Brewer.
The policy, as it is now, will require students who get tickets through Ticket Return, to then go to a second location to be assigned seats.
School officials are trying to prevent the chaos in the student section that happens when students start moving from the upper deck to the lower deck and non-students sneaking into the section.
"I don't see how we can continue doing things this way," Brewer said. "It's just not working."
Students say assigning seats, however, is not the answer.
Students who get a lower-level ticket on Ticket Return must still get a wristband at the stadium before being allowed into the lower portion of the student section. But some say the gatekeepers at the student section keep running out of wristbands.
"Once we got in the stadium, they wouldn't let us in because of lack of wristbands," Mady McLeod, a USC student said. "I went to another gate to get a wristband and they didn't have any. They ran out."
Without the wristband McLeod says she was told he had to go into the upper section.
"I got heated and started yelling and got taken out of the stadium," McLeod said.
She didn't just get escorted out of the stadium, she was taken the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center where she was held overnight.
One hundred and ninety six students were escorted out of Saturday's game against Vanderbilt.
"I'm not going to want to sit with random people," Zach Meltzer, another USC student said.
No final decision on the proposed assigned seating plan is expected until the university gets more input.
