Yale Tickets

The success of Harvard's football team this year has kindled a new enthusiasm among undergraduates for Coach John Yovicsin and his style of football. But along with the enthusiasm there has been an unprecedented demand for tickets to the choice games.

For the Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale home games, freshmen and sometimes sophomores are annually relegated to the temporary bleachers behind the goal post at the open end of the Stadium. The situation for last Saturday's game with Yale was the worst ever, as 500 folding chairs were added on the roof to handle freshmen and their dates.

Of course, undergraduates were not the only people to suffer. Many graduate students did not get tickets, and several hundred alumni were furious at being denied good seats, or any seats. But after all, football is an undergraduate sport. And except for the season ticket holders, undergraduates are Harvard's most faithful spectators at the lesser games.

The alumni, on the other hand, place the highest demands on choice-game tickets. There were more applications from the Class of 1942 alone for the Yale game than from all alumni for the Brown game.

It is Harvard's policy that all undergraduates have seats, but the seats are often so low in the end zone that a clear view is impossible. Student seats now start almost at midfield and continue into the bleachers at the open end. It would be preferable if student seats started at midfield and continued the other way into the closed section of the Stadium. This would not upset the Faculty Committee on Athletics' order of priority in filling ticket orders. Many students would still be behind the end zone, but they could at least have the benefit of a higher vantage point. Students then would also form a compact section.

Such a change would require that students turn in their applications a week or two earlier so that the Ticket Office could fill the rest of the closed end of the Stadium with alumni and others. The open end bleachers could be used for applicants with priorities lower than students.

It is the responsibility of the Faculty Committee on Athletics to allow all undergraduates in the Stadium -- not on top of it or at the open end of it.