By having the police/stadium security stop fraternity pledges from "saving" large areas of seating for their groups (the way we did it when I was in school before they assigned seating)

How would they know they were part of an organization?

Because they have their fraternity flag held by a bunch of pledges staking out their area of the seating. Pledges were sent when the stadium opened in order to hold the seats.

And I imagine they'd be smart enough not to bring their fraternity flag. So again I ask.. how would anyone know they were part of an organization and restrict them from sitting together?

The seating is assigned, so it can be reassigned, meaning that another group would be there, or the group could, I guess, all come early to get their seats.

You probably went to a school where you showed up a couple of minutes before the game and just walked in and got a seat. At Alabama - and most other SEC schools - there is a large student section (at Bryant-Denny it's half of one end zone and about a third or more of the east stands and the stadium seats over 101,000). Seats are not reserved in the student section - it's first come first served. So as soon as the stadium opens, 3 hours before kickoff, the appointed pledges go and stake out the the seats. Even if they don't have their flags, they are dressed well (watch a game sometime and see how well dressed they are ) and wear their badges. And they spread out and stake out an area. I'd say 3/4 of the stadium is filled an hour before kickoff. Toto, you are not in Kansas any more. Nothing personal but football here is just as different as recruitment is.

No, it is not at Alabama. The student section is open to anyone with a student ticket. WIth the group assigned seating, you can sit anywhere within the area that is assigned to your group. If they cancel a group's assignment, an individual can sit anywhere in that area. But the seats themselves are not assigned like regular tickets.

And the stickers! The sorority women are dressed up as well--dresses in school colors, boots or sandals (depending on the time of year) and the spirit stickers. They make large stickers with ZZZ loves (fill in the blank). I watched the some of the Bama-Tennessee game and saw lots of navy blazers and khaki pants as well as girls in crimson and black & white houndstooth dresses. Saw several ladies wearing the large round stickers.

It is a whole different world from what I know in the Big Ten.

Me? I went to Penn State. I'm not a stranger to packed stadiums with a capacity over 100,000, and first come, first served seating. But thanks for assuming.

I was asking a simple question. Again, I would think that if it came to the third sanction being implemented, that the students would find a way around "announcing" the fact that they're in an organization, and there'd be no way to monitor who was sitting with whom.

But I could be wrong...

Here at Clemson we have gameday buttons-those rounds plastic button pins that say XYZ <3s the Tigers. You can stick them on your backpack when it's not gameday, which is what I've done. Everyone wears dresses as well in orange, purple, or some combination thereof. Our blocks are not large enough to hold everyone in the sorority because the school has figured out that if you give less students tickets you can sell more to alumni and because the sororities are the largest they've ever been here, so groups of new members will camp out for tickets together so they can sit together.

This is what confuses me - is it assigned seating or not? I thought they are assigned blocks and not individual seats.

Reading between the lines here, they assign a BLOCK of seats, so for the sake of ease, ABC sorority gets row A, CDE sorority gets row B, FGH gets row C. Within that row, any sorority member can sit there. But for this game, ABC has lost their row and will have to go to "festival" seating. Am I close?

More
Minorities
Join Alabama
Sororities.

OK, that rhyming thread name has stuck in my head for days and now I've finally said it and gotten it off my chest. Thank you!:cool:

Let me get this straight. They're not leaving early because the score is (example) LSU 60, Alabama 6. They're leaving early because the score is LSU 6, Alabama 60.

The team is WINNING. Not losing, and they really need the cheers of the fans to maybe help them rally and come from behind. They are mopping the floor with their opponents. It obviously doesn't matter if students leave early, the team is still doing well. So who cares??????

If it's a question of fraternity/sorority block seating, maybe make the blocks smaller so everyone in the chapter isn't forced to go. I mean, yeah this is SEC football and yadda yadda, but I'm sure there are members who really couldn't care less about sitting and watching the game for 3 hours. (Especially in dress clothes in the heat - bleeeaaahhhh)

If you look at the block seating, it's the fraternities who get them for the most part. And the individual seats in ALL the student section are unassigned. So theoretically, any student could sit anywhere within the student section. However, in the south end zone for the most part, organizations can ask for assigned sections so that their members and guests (dates) can sit together. It is this assigned block seating which was cancelled for this game only. So, everyone would have to get there early today in order to sit together. Back when I went to school, there was no assigned block seating but just regular student open seating. That's when the frat peldges would go when the stadium opened to save the seats for their frat and their dates....which is what could happen now if they cancelled the block seating as they did today unless stadium security was told to stop it. And not everyone in the fraternity goes...they have way fewer student seats available than needed so they have a lottery to buy student tickets too....


Now, does that make it clearer?