Ticket prices and procedures should be fair for all
Brother Thomas Corcoran
class of 1950
When I was young, and if I remember, we paid about $2 to attend the football games. We had perfect seats, right under the press box on the 50-yard line. To attend the home basketball games, all we had to do to get into the old gym was to wear our habit — the "price of admission" was free.
The price of tickets has gone up. And I personally think, at this time, the tickets are not only priced obscenely, but prohibitive for the same Religious of Holy Cross who, by historical facts, helped build this University almost single-handedly. But do we get any gratitude? Do we get any breaks? My answer is no. It costs me $116 to attend a single football game. I have to pay the regular price of $43 for two people, one to push my wheelchair in and one for me as a spectator, then I have to pay another $20 for a "special" parking space which is about three blocks away from the stadium. I might as well have the other brother push me across 933.
One of the reasons I am writing this letter is because of a quote I read in Scholastic on Sept. 12 in the section called "Listening In." I quote from a professor of history commenting on the inflation of student football prices. He said, "What do I care? I get my tickets for free."
The Brothers of the Holy Cross don't get free tickets. I guess this professor probably makes about $80,000 a year to teach here, and I also guess that he is one of those scalpers on Angela Boulevard and 933 selling his free tickets. What a deal. I have given 56 years to this community and I have to pay $116 to get into this very expensive Stadium for a single game.
You figure it out. This amounts to $696 to see six football games, which I couldn't pay, even if I wanted too. I am poor, not rich like the University or its personnel.
I realize that Notre Dame is a very wealthy University, for I get the donation letters all the time. I graduated in 1950, and this must go with the territory. No, the brothers of Holy Cross don't get any breaks. I do not for certain, but I will bet that the Holy Cross priests either get their tickets for free or they do not have to pay the full price.
A couple years ago, I asked University President Father Edward Malloy if I could sit in the press box. He wrote me back to say, "No, we have spaces for wheelchairs down on the field for the disabled." This was before millions were spent on the Stadium. But I still had to pay the going rate just to sit on the field — the going rate at that time. I was not about to spend four hours looking at ankles — especially when they were 100 yards away, during half of the game.
Now I know recently our Superior General, Father Hugh Cleary and one of his assistants were seated in the press box. Where they given free tickets? Why should the priests and lay people get all the perks? I was talking with a former employee of the University this morning and he told me, "You would be surprised how many free tickets were given out to many parties to the football games. Why, even the players get free tickets," he said. "You should see how plush the private box for Father Hesburgh is. I was invited to watch the game from that box one time. And how stocked it is with drinks and free food."
"Well," I told my friend, "he was the former president, and he deserves some perks." Get my point?
I had to get this off my chest, for at my age, as one who will probably never see another Notre Dame football game in person, I am broke from paying all that money at all those other football and basketball games for the past 50 years.
Brother Thomas Corcoran
class of 1950
Oct. 8
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, October 9, 2002
