Seventeen years of loyalty to the Iron Dukes may no longer guarantee basketball season tickets once the athletic department finishes a review of its ticket policy.
Any changes would not take effect until the 2000-2001 season.
According to the current ticket allocation policy, the option to buy the $497 season tickets is guaranteed if "you have been an Iron Duke member and held seats each year since the 1983-84 season while maintaining or increasing your annual gift."
Two other groups now receive guaranteed seats in Cameron Indoor Stadium: faculty and staff with tickets since 1983-84 and paid-up life members of the Iron Dukes with tickets since 1983-84.
Coveted seats at the "stadium" level are allocated based on how much the donor gives to the Iron Dukes; this year's cutoff is projected at $3,000.
The review will examine the possibility of changing the balance between the number of tickets at the stadium level and the number for those who have been maintaining or increasing their gift since 1983-84.
The life members will retain their seats regardless of any changes to the policy, according to the letter sent to season ticket holders.
Officials noted that no new members can be added to the life membership program.
Faculty and staff will probably receive about the same number of seats, although their places are not guaranteed.
Associate Athletic Director Susan Ross said the Athletics Advisory Board-which includes alumni, Iron Dukes, former athletes and parents-first encouraged the athletic department to review the ticket allocation process this April.
"Cameron is pretty small," said board member John Forlines Jr., Trinity '39, "and we've got a lot of people who are large contributors that need to get tickets. We've got a lot of people who've got tickets now who are not contributing [significantly]."
While acknowledging the merit of having long-time fans in Cameron during basketball season, Forlines said that some changes were likely on the way.
"I think those folks who have been lucky enough to have tickets for a long period of time and who have not been contributing [near stadium level] to the Iron Dukes will not be likely to continue to have that opportunity," he explained.
Larry Osborne, Engineering '76, who said he gives the program $400 each year, planned to lessen or eliminate his annual gift to the Iron Dukes if his basketball tickets were taken away.
"I'm not gonna give them $3,000 a year," he said. "I have absolutely no intention of upping it to the level required."
Ann Loflin, Woman's College '65, an Iron Duke who has purchased season tickets since 1982, said she was upset that she might not be guaranteed tickets in the future. "That does bother me," she said. "It bothers me because there are people who are really strong Duke fans, and those are the folks I like to see go there."
Ross stressed that long-time fans would not get passed over as administrators consider how to allocate between 5,500 and 6,000 seats.
"We certainly have no intention of doing anything that would alienate these long-time, loyal basketball supporters," she said. "We would never treat them in any way but with the highest respect."
Professor of Community and Family Medicine Dr. George Parkerson, Trinity '50, School of Medicine '53, who has held season tickets since 1974, worried that he would lose his tickets under the new policy. "We would be very much opposed to that [new policy,]" he said. "We probably would not be able to go to the games."
Ross emphasized that the revisions were at a very early stage, as a task force of Iron Duke members has just begun to examine the issue.
The group is expected to report back by April 2000.
"The review process is going to be something that a number of different groups of people are involved in," said Mitch Moser, athletic department business manager.
"It will be reviewed by the athletic administration, the athletic advisory board, and President [Nan] Keohane and [Executive Vice President Tallman] Trask."
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