The Sports Guy

Last week a controversy broke loose around the dorms due to the most popular topic on this campus-, parking. The annual GISA basketball tournament came to Milledgeville and students were asked to move their cars from the Centennial parking lots behind Napier and Foundation Halls. Students become furious, but gritted their teeth and dealt with it.

Although they met the university’s requests, the students did not go quietly. Sophomore Candace Rowell parks in the lot behind Napier and was not happy with the demands.

“I was ticked, I pay to live here and park here,” Rowell said. “That is like telling me not to park in my own driveway.”

Did the university really need all that space? The truth is they did. The GISA basketball tournament fills the Centennial Center to its capacity. More than 5,000 people filled the gym just to watch one game. Over the three days the tournament was held, Thursday through Saturday, around 10,000 people made it into the Centennial Center to see the tournament.

“It is not practical to have 5,000 people park at West Campus and have them take the shuttle to (the) Centennial Center,” said Assistant Athletics Director for Public Relations Brad Muller. “It is much easier to ask students to move their cars.”

I understand students need to move, but the school needs to make a more practical solution. Students were asked to move their cars to the Irwin Street parking lot. Let’s be honest, no student is ever going to use that parking lot-it has not been used since they built it. It is the biggest waste of money. Freshman Jessica Bell thinks the lot’s impractical.

“The lot is so far away. It is an inconvenience,” Bell said. “I have to go to work during the week and I have to leave 30 minutes early just to catch the bus so I can get to my car.”

The state of the matter is that the school is going to host this tournament for years to come. It is a significant moneymaker and publicity stunt for the school. I think even though it is bad, it could be a lot worse. The school could tell us where to park-like a lot of other universities. I think we should just cooperate and move for those three days.

If you have any thoughts about this column please send a response to colonnadeletters@gcsu.edu.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 3 2006. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry