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Tradition: a word that surrounds Kansas men’s basketball. Allen Fieldhouse: home of the original rules of basketball. One of the first places the game was ever played and the second-winningest program in all of college basketball.
With such tradition, it is not hard to see why the Kansas Jayhawks have sold out every home game for the last 21 years.
Because of these sellouts, games at the Fieldhouse are virtually impossible to get into. So, Kansas students developed an organized camping process to secure their seats in the student section.
There are about three main steps in the camping process, first of which being the lottery.
“The morning after every home game at 6:00 a.m., there is a camping lottery to decide camping groups for the next home game,” Camping Leadership team member Fiona McManus said. “There is a group sign-in before the lottery starts. Groups draw out of a bag of chips. For every five people in a group there, you get one pick, and there can be up to 30 people in a group.”
The drawing process decides what order the groups are placed in. Every group gets a fair chance to draw a good number, but after the lottery is when group numbers are assigned and the camping begins.
“Camping takes place from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends in Allen Fieldhouse,” McManus said. “If a member of your group is not there, you get moved to the back of the list.”
While groups are camping out in Allen Fieldhouse, the camping leadership team handles the rest. It decides how many days before a game camping starts, or what happens if a camping group was unfairly crossed off the list.
“For normal games, we usually start camping two to three days before the game, but for big games like Kentucky or Missouri, we have camping longer because there are so many groups,” McManus said. “If a camping group feels they were unfairly crossed off, the rest of the camping groups vote whether or not to keep that group in.”
Then there is a final roll call on game day, where numbers are handed out to all of the camping groups. Each group then hands their number to a stadium employee upon entering the Fieldhouse. This process ensures groups enter the stadium in the proper order they were assigned at the lottery.
Although camping is a complicated process, it gives every student a fair shot at good seats. This system also ensures the same people won’t always be in the front row for every game, as groups have to rely on a lucky draw at the lottery for a front-row seat instead.
From the days of camping outside Allen Fieldhouse in tents to lining the interior halls of the stadium, camping is just another tradition that comes with Kansas basketball.
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