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Fieldhouse Campers

In the midst of winter's deep freeze, hundreds of students find time to go camping - in the northwest corner of Allen Fieldhouse.

These campers are part of a Kansas University basketball tradition.

Student seating is on a first-come, first-served at home basketball games, and several hundred Jayhawk fans are willing to sacrifice comforts of home for a dark, breezy lobby to get quality courtside seats. Fan groups camp out for as many as 16 hours a day, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., in the fieldhouse lobby as early as a week before a game.

"The only way to get decent seats is to come out and camp out for it," said Scott Rezne, who came to KU form Wichita in 1995. "It's a lot easier when you have a large number of people to camp out for your group."

During every basketball season, many campers can be found sleeping while wrapped in the warmth of a sleeping bag or cuddled underneath a blanket with their head on a pillow to ensure at least some comfort. Because the lobby can rival the silent atmosphere of a library at times, some campers choose to read a novel or do homework.

While the camping system has worked for KU over the years, only a limited number of people, outside the campers themselves, know how the system works.

At the beginning of each new camping period - which usually starts the morning after a home game at the fieldhouse - a lottery is held to determine the order of student groups. Each group receives one number in the lottery for every five people in the group. Any groups that set up camp after the lottery are placed at the bottom of a list posted on the fieldhouse wall.

The list is used to call the roll. If a representative group member is absent when roll is taken, the group's spot is forfeited. All subsequent groups present move up one spot in the order of entrance to the upcoming game.

Fan groups are allowed to enter the fieldhouse two hours before tipoff. Everybody else may enter 30 minutes later.

Groups may have a maximum of 30 people, although there are several groups that have 10 or fewer members. Many of the bigger groups, containing 15 or more people, can set up three- or four-hour camping shifts. Smaller groups cannot afford that kind of luxury.