Alumni Affairs 'done us wrong'

To my friends in the Duke Alumni Association and Duke Athletic Association: After many years waiting for the chance to attend an NCAA Tournament game, I got my wish Thursday. And after so many years, I was disappointed. I was surprised and delighted when Duke drew a Washington-area game on Selection Sunday this week, mostly because I was fortunate to have access to club-level seats. I invited several Duke friends, some of whom had already bid on repriced tickets upwards of $300 apiece on StubHub or similar Web sites.

What upsets me is not that they resorted to bid on tickets for a tourney game. Rather, at least a dozen friends called me asking for tickets because they called the Alumni Association offices and were told tickets were only available to Iron Dukes. Young alumni needed not inquire, much less apply. When we arrived at the game, I anticipated a quarter of the fans at the two-game session would be for Duke. What we discovered was that nearly all of the lower level was empty, save for a paltry Duke section, an invigorated Belmont section and a lower level rife with anti-Duke fans waiting for the next game. The upper level may have held a number of Duke fans, but we didn't hear much given the overpowering cheers against us from below. The club level appeared to be full of frustrated Duke fans who had apparently tried in vain to get seats (from what I gathered standing behind them in line to purchase $5 fries from the vendors). My question is: Where were my friends from Alumni Affairs, and why didn't we get a better shake securing prime seats, or any seats at all for the average Duke alum?

I don't expect better tickets than teams like Belmont or Arizona, but I expect equal access. Why were Duke alumni who aren't the privileged Iron Dukes sequestered to upper levels where their voices were not only muted by distance but by the hordes of Belmont and other fans who lined the court? And, frankly, why don't the alums of Washington (who make up the second-largest alumni group in the country as well as a group of future donors) receive the same options as our older, more endowed alums or our classmates in the New York area? We won the game, but I still wonder... would an audience of young, loud, exuberant fans, whose tickets our Alumni Association advocated for and distributed fairly, have helped us play a bit harder? I would think so.

Elizabeth Dixon

Trinity '05