ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 7, 1996 TAG: 9602070029
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: HAL SHEIKERZ STAFF WRITER
The students with shovels outside Cassell Coliseum on Tuesday weren't helping the university with its snow removal plan.
They were digging for dry space. Space to pitch a tent and camp out.
These are the die-hard Virginia Tech basketball fans, camping out one full week to get tickets for the Virginia Tech-University of Massachusetts game scheduled for Feb. 17. Tickets will not be distributed to students until Monday.
For the next several days, they will sit out in wet snow, sub-freezing temperatures and possible rain. All this to watch the 11th-ranked Hokies play the No.1 team in the country.
They will be there day and night. Many will miss classes. Some will bring books, but will never read them. They will have blankets, sleeping bags and lots of warm food. Some said they will have liquor "to keep warm." Others suggested having a girlfriend or boyfriend in the tent. Most students hadn't considered the possibility of frostbite.
Had it been really cold, Amy VanMiddlesworth, who spent Monday night in a tent, would have gone back to her dorm room.
"I wasn't willing to risk my life for a ticket," she said.
But inside the tent, which she shared with boyfriend Dave Keegan, it was warmer than you'd think.
The two slept on top of a sleeping bag, flannel sheet and comforter. On top of them they had three blankets, another flannel sheet and another comforter. They each wore several layers of clothing.
The coldest part was when they got up and had to leave the warmth of the tent at 7 a.m., VanMiddlesworth said.
"This is pretty stupid," David Mader said Tuesday as he shoveled snow to make room for a tarp and his six-person tent.
Mader, a junior from Nebraska, doesn't understand how there can be so much snow when "we're almost in North Carolina. I'm so far south that it's weird.
Mader hasn't missed a single home basketball game since his freshman year. He had figured that because of the snow, people wouldn't start camping out for tickets until the end of the week.
He was wrong.
"Everyone was waiting for someone to start," said Gordon Rutledge, who was in front of the coliseum with his tent by 10 p.m. Monday.
At 1 p.m. Tuesday, he was cold and unhappy - the person who was supposed to take over his shift was late.
Mader was on his way to his 12:30 p.m. class Tuesday when he saw several tents already pitched. He ditched class, went home to get his camping gear and shovel, and came back to find a spot. He and his friend Jim Raab didn't think they were going to make it to their 2 p.m. class, either. "We'll just drop off the homework."
Though he and his friends will be taking turns camping out, Mader thinks the worst will come Friday and Saturday when people will want to go out instead of sitting in front of Cassell.
"No one wants to stay out and sit in the snow and cold," he said.
Will Pettit and Erin Bryan hold the hot spot. They occupy Tent No.1 and have the list of the other students camping out, which will keep people from breaking into the line later. The two freshmen are part of a group of 40 students from West Ambler-Johnston Hall. They pitched their tent at 6 p.m. Monday.
Good organization is key. Pettit said his group has had meetings and has a list of who's taking what shift. Each group member has to camp out at least one hour. Most are doing more.
Tuesday afternoon, Chris Zettervall and Jarrod Ison sat on chairs outside their tent enjoying the sun's warmth - while it lasted. Zettervall said he doesn't care what the weather does in the next several days.
"The tent stands up," he said, even if there is freezing rain. He said the key to staying warm is having magazines to read and a charge account with Gumby's so he can order a hot pizza every night.
Mader doesn't care what the weather does, either. "Someone's got to be out there," he said.
Sandy Smith, assistant ticket manager at Virginia Tech, said that some 5,000 student tickets are available for the UMass game, which has been sold out to the public for months. While the last several home games also have been sold out to the public, he said the ticket office has yet to run out of the allotted student tickets for any game this season. He expects that will end with UMass.
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Gene Dalton. 1. David Mader (top photo) shovels snow toby CNBclear a campsite outside Cassell Coliseum. 2. By midafternoon, a
tent city (above) had sprung up. 3. Virginia Tech students (from
left) Mike Owen, Herb Higginbotham, Jarrod Isom and Chris Zettervall
(back to camera) socialize outside their tents near Cassell Coliseum
on Tuesday afternoon. color.