Finally, we, the students can get some respect -- and some parking.
No, I'm not talking about good parking on campus (I wish I was), I'm talking about parking at basketball games.
Personally, I'm tired of paying an activity fee to be treated 'fifth class' at U of M sporting events.
At the Memphis/UT fiasco, several students complained about being kicked out of the game after Athletic Director R.C. Johnson said no student would be turned away.
According to Johnson, people who were not students just sat in the student section, taking seats away from students.
So why were we forced out?
Because those people who 'just sat in our seats' were UT fans who had tickets to sit there.
And while some rude UT fans told Memphis students to get out of their seats, others called "seating technicians" to usher students out of the stadium.
Of course some words were exchanged along with some pushing and shoving and a few fights ensued.
Well hey, at least one Tiger team went down without a fight that day.
It's the same thing for basketball.
Parking for the game: $5
A pair of shoes for walking several miles to and from your car: $40
Getting degraded by low-level Pyramid employees: Priceless
Why should we have to pay five dollars to park two miles away from the Pyramid, then be degraded by the event staff -- the bottom rung of employees who gets stepped on by everyone else.
Upon arrival to the exibition game against Team Georgia, one student told me about her experience. She was told by an event staffer, "Ya'll are fifth class citizens. You can't come in this way, you have to go all the way around the Pyramid to the other side ."
"I didn't think that they actually looked at us like that," the student said. "He even said alumni get more credibility than we do."
I guess everybody has to feel more important than somebody else.
But all this stuff is about to change.
Men's basketball head coach John Calipari said he wants the students to be an integral part of the team's success.
"We want to get the campus involved in the basketball program and in the athletic program," he said.
Basketball manager Daryn Freedman said one way of doing that is to have free parking for the students in the St. Jude parking lot located at Third and North Parkway, approximately three blocks from the Pyramid.
There are about 800 spaces available, but in order to park there for free, there must be at least three people in the car.
Not bad.
The second change is the strategic moving of the student section. The seats have been assigned under the basket, so students can get some camera time when Memphis games are televised, like the one against Temple Friday night.
"We want them (the students) to be in a situation where they can stand up and cheer and no one will tell them to sit down," Freedman said. "This game will be nationally televised on ESPN, people from all over the country will be watching."
I can dig it. Maybe now our fans can be the ones going wild and crazy, like all those kids who go to the Final Four.
Other ideas in the works are to have a trolley bus shuttle students from Beale St. to the Pyramid and wristbands for students who attend the game to get into all the clubs on Beale for free.
At last, the recognition we deserve. After the game, you can catch me at Legends on Beale. I'll be the one yelling, "Respect!, Now I'll drink to that!"