I'd personally like to thank the geniuses at the Student Union Board for the fantastically organized Michigan ticket lottery. After standing in line for over three hours, hundreds of individuals were left out in the cold. This was not for game tickets, mind you, but for the chance to be entered into a lottery for the right to purchase actual game tickets. SUB managed to take a procedure that in past years had taken approximately 15 minutes and, to my knowledge, never shut out anybody, and turned it into a near riot amongst infuriated students. The individual who claimed to be the organizer of the event cited supposed "Indiana laws" and possible "racketeering charges" necessitating the halt of the lottery at precisely 6:07 pm and leaving myself and hundreds of others who had been in line for over three hours standing there empty-handed. If there is anyone who should be prosecuted it's the bozos running that operation. It was the most poorly run and communicated process that I've ever had the misfortune of experiencing. There was absolutely no prior notice indicating that the procedure had been changed from last year or to express what would be required of students once there. The published ad simply stated, "Bring Your ID." Not until students arrived were flyers handed out explaining the painfully slow new process. On top of that, SUB put no limit on the number of IDs per person, resulting in the lucky few people at the front of the line stockpiling lottery tickets while others were shut out completely. The head clown challenged protesters to come up with a better plan. Well, I can think of about a hundred better ways to have conducted it and would be more than happy to pass them on. A lottery is supposed to give everyone an equal opportunity to win. If the goal was to reward the individuals who show up first, then why even have a lottery? Just sell the tickets outright - first-come, first-serve. SUB claimed the process was overhauled because 40 people were cheated last year. Well, I can assure them that number was a whole lot more than that this time.
Dan Heider'99, MBA '04Sept. 4
