Ole Miss game days are supposed to be a time for community and football, but that experience has been soiled for some students by Greek life fraternity pledges attempting to remove them from their seats in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
Anna Gansereit, a junior exercise science major, says she and her friends were asked to move from their seats by a fraternity pledge at one of the first games of the football season.
“We were trying to sit towards the upper middle section, and we found what we thought were empty seats,” Gansereit said. “Then a pledge came up to us and was like, ‘You have to leave. This is saved for actives only. You guys can’t be here.’”
The all-female trio thought the pledges were not serious, but they were urged to move again.
“We were like, ‘There’s plenty of room around us; I’m sure it’ll be fine. We’re girls, they’re not going to kick us out,’” Gansereit said. “And they were like, ‘No, you have to leave now.’ So we got up and left and went way higher.”
Sophomore journalism major Olivia Moore always tries to get into Ole Miss football games early so that she can get seats close to the field. Although she has not personally been urged by pledges to leave her seat, she has seen it happen to others.
“At one of the games, I witnessed a group of guys confronting a group of girls accusing them of taking their ‘saved seats.’ The confrontation became so escalated that the police and security had to resolve the situation,” Moore said. “I don’t know why the guys acted that way. The student section seats are first-come seats.”
The “first come, first sit” policy is one that University of Mississippi students have recited repeatedly. The Daily Mississippian received confirmation from a member of the Ole Miss Athletics Ticket Booth that the seating policy is indeed “first come, first serve.” When asked if this policy is enforced, they would not comment.
Junior psychology student Rebekah Ball is not sure what the policy is regarding seating in the student section. As a result, she, too, has had her seat swindled from her by these bench bandits — a whopping five times at the game against Georgia Tech. She says that those encounters and the constant pushes for her group to relocate were frustrating.
“I was really confused because I was wondering what authority they had over me,” Ball said. “Some of them were nice; some of them were a little aggressive.”
A former fraternity pledge said that pledges are instructed to save seats early in the stadium and that the process is elaborate. He and the UM fraternity parted ways because of “irreconcilable differences,” he said, and he asked to speak anonymously.
“It was understood we would always arrive at the (fraternity) house between six and nine hours before game time so that we would be out in the Grove basically before anybody else. We were free to move about and do whatever we want — visit family, friends and what not — but we were expected to be back at the (fraternity) tent two hours before game time,” he said. “We would go and save seats 90 minutes before the game started, and that was just understood. They would send out messages in group chats.”
The former pledge said there were punishments for not completing tasks correctly.
“If we didn’t save enough seats, we would be excused from the stadium. We were saving seats for the actives and then ourselves; that’s why we were encouraged to save bigger spots,” he said. “There’s this thing called lineups. You get informed that you have to be at the house at a certain time, and whatever happens there depends on the fraternity.”
Do these lineups ever involve any physical harm?
“I wouldn’t say never,” he said. “But I would say very, very rarely.”
The Daily Mississippian reached out to every Greek fraternity on this campus regarding saving seats in the student section at Ole Miss football games. Not one of them responded to our request for comment. The anonymous ex-pledge has theories as to why.
“That’s because it’s hazing,” he said.
UM’s hazing policy states: “The University of Mississippi prohibits hazing in any form. According to the educational website StopHazing.org, hazing ‘refers to any activity expected of someone joining a group (or to maintain full status of the group) that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of their willingness to participate.’”
The university’s Interfraternity Council president, senior accounting major Ashton William Heath, states that the IFC stands with the university against all variations of hazing.
“The Interfraternity Council, Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life and university do not condone any forms of hazing or requirements, such as saving seats for new members,” Heath said. “ If new members choose to go into the games as soon as the gates open to save seats for their fellow fraternity brothers, that is up to their own free will, but it is not required by any of our chapters. Our fraternity community does not stand for this kind of behavior, as it does not align with our high professional, academic and philanthropic standards. I assure the student body that these issues are being addressed and dealt with accordingly.”
Heath said these reports are not news to him and that the IFC is actively trying to remedy any problems involving pledge confrontations over seating.
“We are aware of some of these complaints and have talked to our chapters to remedy these issues and prevent this from occurring for the rest of the season. Chapters that have had members involved with these issues have been sanctioned by our IFC Judicial Board and Student Conduct. Sanctions have included apologies to those negatively affected by these members, fines and training for chapter members involved in this type of behavior,” Heath said.
Ball has heard about these hazing efforts and believes that pledges deserve understanding despite their actions toward her.
“I think there is room to have some sympathy for them because they didn’t ask to be put in this position of (having) to save these seats,” Ball said. “They were just told to do something and then they were told if they don’t do it, they get punished.”
Though Ball feels for the pledges, she finds it important to stick to the policy of the student section.
“We pay for the same seats; we’re in the same boat. (But) we’re the ones that are actually there ready to sit down — not people that come in right before the game,” Ball said. “This is definitely not ‘first come, first serve’ in this situation because the people that are getting the seats are not actually there yet.”
