UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI

COLUMBIA

Le

INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS

such premature scoring may cause violent complaint by some
Opponent who may feel that he was forced to an unnecessary
Change in tactics. I hope you understand that this is a
suggestion for the future, and not a complaint dealing with
the past; that I feel in our case it was not of importance,
but might readily be the cause of preventable friction.

In concluding our exchange of opinions regarding
the ticket situations thet have arisen in our last three
games, I am including @ note sent to me by Mr. Spurling.
When your letter came I was no little disturbed by your
report that some workman told a Kansas player that we were
installing 1,000 seats which would be withheld from sale.
Had that been true you would have real grounds for criticism
of our refusal to send Kansas 200 tickets. However, Phog,

I wish to assure you that such a tale was false. Last year
we moved back the west bleachers and placed 250 chairs in
front of them. This increased our capacity to epproximately
5,000. I say approximately since our bleachers had no
aisles and no marked spaces for seats. Their capacity, as
usual, was estimated on the basis of 18" per person. And
you know that space is mighty small. Combined with the
difficulty of ching empty spaces without aisles, and the
fact that many persons take as much as 30" unless forced to
crowd it usually is impossible to fill any axx bleacher to
its/rated capacity.

Our ticket report accounted for 4,996 admissions
which did not incbude the band, ushers, and other help. Just
previous to the game I had made several moves to install new
bleachers, and had made personally several careful counts
and measurements of our capacity. I know definitely that
5,000 could not be placed around our court without several
hundred people standing. To have increased that number by
1,000, as reported to you, woul@dhave been out of the question
and the statement was ridiculouse I am sorry it was made,
and, until your letter came, could not have imagined that you
would have paid any attention to ite ©

There is another feature which might have confused
youe We rope off a space in the center of the east bleacher
for lettermen now in school and for graduated M men. This
Space is given to the holder of an M pass and one companion.
There are about 100 seats in this section. Ten minutes before
game time the unused seats in this section are made available
to holders of general admission ticketse The presence of thig
reserved space might have given you the idea that the report
we were givéng local lettermen passes for three high schol
athletes had some foundation.