Basketball brouhaha: Tarheel fan booted for wearing blue in Cav zone
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John Paul Jones Arena.FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER
The News & Observer tells what happens when you sit too close to the UVA bench in the John Paul Jones Arena wearing your Carolina blue clothing.
I’ve seen this story linked in a dozen places and I’ve yet to figure out why it is news. Most schools would do a similar thing (if not worse), and tickets purchased from a scalper should always be considered “buyer beware.”
Perhaps if it were anywhere other than the seats right behind the bench (which are designated for certain people), this would be news. But as it stands, it’s not.
Hey Tim, this is America. What about the constitutional right to sit where one chooses-if one holds a paid for ticket to that seat ?
Call the Rutherford Institute.
Are you frickin’ kidding me?
You have absolutely no constitutional right to sit where one chooses no matter what you paid for your ticket. Look at the back of any ticket you’ve ever bought for any event. They can even kick you out of the arena without any cause. By using the ticket you agree to those terms.
What U.Va. did was well within their rights and, like I said, a lot nicer than what would have been done at a lot of other schools. He still had better seats than 90% of the people in the arena.
Sounds like segregation to me, and in honor of Martin Luther King Day, in the name of cross cultural exchange, let’s all sit together no matter what color we wear.
Plessy v Ferguson (163 U.S. 537), 1896
In the 1890’s, Louisiana law provided for separate rail cars for whites and non-whites — the cars were the same, but only whites could sit in the white cars, and only blacks in the black cars. When two cars were not available, single cars were split by partition. Fines and imprisonment were provided for when a person sat in the wrong car. Plessy, a mixed-race man, was required to sit in the non-white car; when he refused, he was ejected from the car and arrested. Plessy appealed his conviction on the basis that he was not a colored person, but also on the allegation that the act was unconstitutional under the 13th and 14th Amendments. The Court disagreed, and for the next 60 years, “separate but equal” was the norm in much of America.
@ TJ - Please don’t offend anyone who suffered through segregation by comparing this to racial profiling. Just like the other Tim said, you agree to the terms of the ticket when you purchase it, and it’s not a right to sit and do whatever you please. You offend me.
so when will the uva staffer be fired for his role in this incident?
Give me a break - this really is non-news. Most other teams that value their home-court advantage would do the same thing, and Duke admitted it. Carolina is being ridiculous if they say they wouldn’t do the same. The real story here is the person who sold their tickets to the scalper who has no compunction as to whom they ultimately get sold. There are plenty of outlets to make sure Wahoo tickets get sold to Wahoo fans.
Jason Bauman handled the situation in an appropriate, civilized manner.
It’s not like UVA was going to win the game, why be petty?
Maybe it’s time we all learned to sit together.
I say that you can sit where you want to no matter what team you are rooting for just be prepared for the heckling you will be getting from the other fans
Does the ticket say what color you have to wear ?
newsobserver- “But he didn’t have time to remove his light blue coat before a man asked to see his ticket. The man told him he had on the wrong colors.”
At least he didn’t HE was the wrong color…………….
I have a problem with all of you. I wear UVa clothes every day, I go to UVa and I bleed UVa. I love everything about the Lawn and Grounds! So am I going to have crap when I wear a Duke sweatshirt with my surname on it and a UVa hat when the women’s team comes to town on the 24 of Feb? I would think that both UVa and Duke fans are above the ignorance of fighting and arguing with one another. By the way, I will be rooting for both at the game: the University of Virgina AND Duke University.
question:
Is this arena built with any public funds? Not sure, just askin…if so, hmmmm
John William:
you can wear whatever you want to the women’s basketball games. The 3 people in attendance will all be over the age of 60 and thus too old to do anything about your wardrobe.
This article was aptly titled, “Basketball brouhaha” –sometimes it’s good to argue about truly important matters.
This makes me glad we lost. Anyone brave enough to wear those colors that close to our bench deserves to stay, if they can take the boos and catcalls they must have been getting. Pretty lame to bust out big brother and throw the guy out without giving him another seat.
can you read? he was not thrown out, just give another lower level seat.
@CT - no, none of U.Va.’s athletics programs are paid for with public funds. It’s something they strive to do so that people like you can’t come around and try to claim some sort of ridiculous rules should govern what they do.
@tim. Thanx for the insight. sorry to agitate you so much. People like me don’t really care. Am more of a Cav fan vs Tarheel anyhoos
Roy Williams had a guy from Presbyterian tossed out of the Dean Dome last year during a blowout win because the guy was in the wrong seats. Nuff said.
The athletic department does not receive any state money, for anything. It is completely separate from the rest of the university. The arena, and all other athletic facilities, was built with private donations.
Misleading headline - “Booted” implies he was thrown out. As I understand it, he was simply moved to another seat.
To me there are two different questions here.
The first one is whether UVA had the legal right to move this fan. To which, the answer is absolutely yes.
The followup question is whether UVA should have moved the fan. This one is up to some interpretation and personal opinion. The section the fan was in is used for official UVA guests, such as families and recruits. You absolutely do not want opposing fans in the section, for both competitive and respect reasons. Personally i feel that it was better to remove him as soon as you see he is an opposing fan and not wait to see if they say/do something offensive, otherwise people scream free speech etc. So ultimately I support moving the fan, especially considering UVA gave him the best seat available. Scalping a ticket is always a risk.
It appears that most if not all other major sports schools follow similar policies, so it isn’t like UVA is going out on their own here. That said, it definitely looks bad and leaves the bad taste in the mouth of the fan who was moved, so additional steps should be taken to prevent it from happening in the future. Right now it seems like UVA basically says you can give the tickets way, but you are responsible for who gets them. So UVA should suspend the original recipients ability to get these tickets. They should also require that ticket holders enter through a specific gate that has a predetermined list of people who can use the tickets. This way if you want to give the tickets away you need to get the persons name on a list. This would prevent ticket holders from selling the tickets to unknown people.
i think UVA is totally in the wrong here. if you want to control who wears what in specific sections of the arena, then keep tighter control of your tickets. don’t let staff sell their freebies if they can’t make it to the game.
If you are going to be a real newspaper, how about actually writing an article Hook? You guys do this at least once a week. Use someone else work and place it on your website. Lazy and really lame.
Read the back of a ticket, they can move you/boot you for anything. It’s like an orange and blue communist arena and the same as any other one.
Wow, and the team is MEDIOCRE at BEST. I could understand if the school was a national powerhouse…..I thought the JPJ was built as a recruiting tool clearly someone’s pipe dream.
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It’s bum deal that this guy was moved to a worse seat. Would he have paid $100 knowing the school would not let him sit behind the bench and would make him move to a corner seat? Very poor taste. He didn’t do anything wrong. The person at fault here is the one who sold the ticket to the scalper. What is the school doing about that?
Like anyone in the country would know what UVA’s colors are anyway since they suck every year in any sport anyone watches. More bitterness from a program full of incompetents just like the way everything operates in this town.
…….but King Ralph is still “King”? “King” of what?
Perhaps a move to another “kingdom” is in order……..
At least we won control of that one seat, go Hoos, never mind that that North Carolina Blue owned the Cavalier’s court that game and nearly every game they play there.