Student Council and the University Athletics Department are implementing a system to ensure that students camping out for seats at men's basketball games are treated fairly.
Council selected 12 student line monitors who are responsible for overseeing "Hooville," the community of tents where the team's most zealous fans await the opportunity to receive choice seats in University Hall.
"It is going to be a lot more relaxed atmosphere," said John Steck, the member of Council's Athletic Affairs Committee who wrote the new policies. "Hopefully, it will be even more fun than last year."
Line monitors will collect lists of groups of students who want to camp out for tickets. Each group will be limited to 10 students. One member of each group will be required to stay in line at all times.
Monitors will conduct random roll calls to check whether groups actually have a member at Hooville. Any group that misses two roll calls will lose its place in line.
Exceptions will be made on game days to allow students who have been waiting to take showers and put their tents away.
"I think our biggest responsibility is to enforce the University policy of first come, first served," said Martin Radzio, one of the line monitors.
An informal Hooville list system existed previously, but fans had complained about people cutting in line during the mad dashes when University Hall's doors opened on game days.
"There was no authority to [the old lists]; there was no one to back up the system," said Steck, who will become chairman of the Athletic Affairs Committee in the spring semester.
Assistant Athletic Director Andrew Rader said the system has worked "so far, so good." No one has camped out for home basketball games yet this season, but monitors have been present to ensure the integrity of lines on game days.
"People have complimented how smoothly things have gone," Radzio said.
Rader and Steck expect fans to start camping out when the team enters its ACC schedule in January.
Council and the Athletics Department are also in the process of finalizing the creation of "Team Cavalier," a student fan organization. Council members and Athletics Department officials are meeting today to discuss the proposal.
Team Cavalier will begin as a group of men's basketball supporters, but organizers plan to broaden the group's focus to include other sports in upcoming years.
Students will be able to become members of the group by purchasing a Team Cavalier T-shirt. Members of the group will receive privileges such as access to practices and dinners with the team.
"We are slowly moving forward with Team Cavalier, in a much modified version," Rader said.
An early version of the Team Cavalier proposal had included reserved seating at basketball games for members. Council members objected to this idea, which caused it to be scrapped from the plan.
Some argued against the reserved seating because they said it would have made waiting in line in Hooville less important.
"We felt that it would be taking away from the Hooville environment," Steck said.
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