Colleges

Waiting game

USF students wait in line to scarf up any remaining tickets.

By BILL VARIAN, Times Staff Writer
Published October 10, 2007

	Junior Ignacio Torano, right, orders pizza while waiting to get tickets Tuesday at the USF Sun Dome. Torano was first in line for the 6 p.m. distribution. Sitting with him is his girlfriend, sophomore Angela Frola. View more USF Bulls fan photos, share yours
[Times photo: Brian Cassella]

TAMPA - Ignacio Torano and Angela Frola had to miss the USF Bulls' upset of West Virginia University two weeks ago.

They weren't going to pass up this weekend's home-game rivalry with the University of Central Florida.

"So we decided to make it a priority to get into this game," said Torano, 20, a junior advertising major.

The couple headed to the USF Sun Dome at noon Tuesday, where they snagged first and second spots in line for the chance to score a few of the remaining free student tickets.

The tickets didn't get handed out until 6 p.m.

Which meant six hours of waiting in line.

At USF.

For football tickets.

These days, students and anyone else who wants to attend a University of South Florida football game has to make it a priority, now that the 11-year-old program has climbed to No. 5 in national rankings.

"It's freaking crazy," said Estevan Del Castillo, a second-year biomedical sciences student, working over a calculator for a class assignment as the line snaked to 221 deep by 4 p.m.

Student football fans at USF are used to a far different drill on game days. Simply head over to Raymond James Stadium, flash a school ID. Then take your pick of premium seating.

"I usually go to every game," said Sandya Hyacinthe, 20, a junior sociology major. "This year it's been hard."

Until this year, the university made 8,000 free tickets available for each home football game, rarely getting rid of them all. But then, some 8,600 students came looking for tickets to the game against Elon College, before USF found the national glare.

Now, suddenly, the school has an evolving "system" for distributing student tickets, the number of which has been bumped to 12,500.

The first drop was Sunday evening, with a follow up on satellite campuses the next day. On Tuesday, the school was down to a little more than 2,000 leftovers, mostly in the upper decks.

"It was so quick," said Erik Book, director of ticket operations for USF, who came on board at the end of last season. "So we've really had to make adjustments on the fly, particularly with student ticketing."

Officially, students were invited to line up starting at 2 p.m. Mercifully, for those who showed up early, the ticket folks set up a makeshift cattle grid on the east side of the building, so there was shade.

Students came with iPods, wireless laptops, cell phones and folding chairs. Some ordered pizza or had friends make fast-food runs. They traded stories about less glorious football times.

Torano, the early bird, remembered attending games when first arrived at USF and thinking more people showed up for Plant High School games his senior year there. Many of his friends had headed to Florida State University, a long-time college football powerhouse.

"My friends from FSU, they're like, 'You're something now,'" Torano said. "Now it's finally giving us some bragging rights."

Frola, his girlfriend, who grew up in Mount Dora, said many of her friends stayed near home, at UCF in Orlando. Some will show up Saturday, hoping their team can bring USF back down a bit.

"My friends are coming from Orlando," Frola said. "I'll be painted up, waiting to greet them."

Bill Varian can be reached at varian@sptimes.com or 813 226-3387.

[Last modified October 10, 2007, 00:31:54]