GONZAGA TICKET OFFICE, SPOKANE, WA – The senior class threw a collective temper tantrum on social media last night as approximately 200 Vegas-bound undergrads were denied access to WCC tournament games due to a shortage of tickets available.
After students spent hundreds of dollars in transportation and hotel costs, many seniors looked to blame the Gonzaga ticket office for their poor execution of ticket distribution. The ticket office was apparently supposed to email a link in which students would be able to purchase some of the coveted WCC tickets based on a first come, first serve competitive basis. However, frustrated seniors are claiming that the link was not sent to all students at the same time, with some seniors saying they never even received the email. This scandal has been given the nickname “TicketGate,” the obvious title because the floodgates opened upon the ticket office after the fiasco.
The athletic department, however, claims something completely different: the underselling of tickets was a deliberate action to teach students a lesson about how untrustworthy technology is, how life will not always be fair, and to broaden students’ horizons as individuals.
“We had hoped that when the students did not get a ticket, they would simply smile, shrug, and realize that life goes on even when things don’t go their way,” commented ticket office representative Gary Bledsoe, “Instead of going to the games, we were expecting [students] to call their moms, grow a community garden or make a neighborhood compost bin. We undersold tickets on purpose to teach a life lesson. We did not anticipate that students would be angry over not being able to see their team live one last time.”
“Life will not always go the way you want it to,” Bledsoe went on to say. “Some individuals get special privileges that others do not. It will be a great example for future ethics courses, as well. By giving our students the opportunity to not only hear this lesson, but to actually experience it? That’s worth a heck of a lot more than some pieces of paper, don’t you think?”
The seniors, however, can’t seem to appreciate the message.
“I didn’t even get a chance to buy the tickets,” Senior Kevin Larson told reporters as he wiped away tears on his Kiss My Class Goodbye shirt. “I worked graveyard shifts for a week just to save money for this trip. Now there’s no reason to go. What else is there to do on the strip in Las Vegas except watch basketball?”
Bledsoe later reportedly tried to shift the blame to the students themselves, saying with frustration, “Look, if they really wanted the tickets so bad, they should have known not to trust technology. Technologies malfunction all the time! The truly dedicated Zags, the ones that I would want at the games, would be those who would have marched to the ticket office and demanded their tickets no matter what. The dedicated fan would go to lengths such as possibly sparking a hostage situation of my workers. I truly don’t believe this is the office’s fault. How could we have foreseen that these students wouldn’t be appreciative of hard-learned lessons?”
Bledsoe also took the press conference as an opportunity to say that, at the end of the week, he would be transferring to BYU for a position in their athletic department.
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