Wearing North Carolina colors costs Tar Heels fan his seat

[JonLP24]

When Greg Demery realized the ticket he'd bought from a scalper for last Saturday's game between North Carolina and Virginia was two rows behind the Cavaliers bench, he couldn't believe his good fortune.

"I thought, 'How did I get this lucky to get this ticket?'" the lifelong Tar Heels fan recalled. "This low to the court? This never happens to me.'"

Unfortunately for Demery, he didn't keep his seat long enough to watch lineup introductions from up close, let alone the game.

Before the 46-year-old Arlington, Va. resident had time to remove his Carolina blue coat, a security guard approached and told Demery he couldn't sit in that section of John Paul Jones Arena wearing Tar Heels colors. Soon afterward, another Virginia staffer asked to see his ticket to verify that it was legitimate. And finally, associate athletic director Jason Bauman escorted Demery from his seat and relocated him to another seat 17 rows higher in the lower bowl.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Wearing-North-Carolina-colors-costs-Tar-Heels-fa?urn=ncaab-307922

[taterguy]

1. Being a dumbass costs Tar Heels fan his seat

Besides, Carolina blue is ugly

[madinmaryland]

2. I'm sorry you got kicked our of your seat, dumbass. Maybe you should have kept your Piehole

shut!

[era veteran]

4. LOL

You owe me a keyboard.

[taterguy]

6. Did you read the fucking article?

I'm not 46 years old and I don't live in Arlington.

Also, I sure as hell don't wear that god-awful shade of blue.

[madinmaryland]

12. I saw you on your bike in Arlington, and you couldn't shut you piehole then either.

I think that shade of blue look good with the scratches on your face, Francis.

[taterguy]

19. You're allowed to ride a bike in Virginia if you're not a resident of the state

However, the only place I've ridden a bike in Virginia is the New River Trail State Park, which is about 200 miles from Arlington.

Anyone who says otherwise is a god damn liar.

ps: You're the last person I'd take fashion advice from.

[KamaAina]

28. Nice post, Krzyzewski!

:P

[petronius]

3. Was it legal for the staffer to give the ticket away, and for the scalper to sell it?

If so, I think VA should get hammered for this - at the very least, they owe him that same seat the next time NC visits and I'd say I nice big apology gift-basket on top of it...

[LiberalFighter]

5. I agree. As long as it was legal he should pursue legal action.

[taterguy]

7. He's too cheap to go to UNC games at UNC where the school he claims to love gets money . . .

And now you want him to lawyer up?

I'd Rule 11 his ass so fast his head would spin.

[era veteran]

8. Not in North Carolina state courts.

Maybe the Feds.

[taterguy]

9. Why would he file suit in North Carolina for an incident that took place in Virginia?

[era veteran]

16. Not in Virginia state courts.

Maybe Oklahoma, Washington, Kansas, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri------ or theFeds.

[taterguy]

17. This is a message board, not a law school assignment

In North Carolina, "Rule 11" is acceptable conversational short-hand for sanctions imposed on someone who files a frivolous lawsuit.

[era veteran]

20. Too bad that it is inaccurate

Which is unlike what our Cats did to EL sss who yesterday; 3-point goals: Kentucky 10-20
(Knight, Brandon 5-7; Liggins, DeAndre 3-3; Miller, Darius 1-4; Lamb, Doron
1-2; Hood, Jon 0-2; Jones, Terrence 0-2).

Final Kentucky 82 LSU 44 Old LSU head Coach Dale Brown in attendance.

Rule 11 not a state law in your uppity talking state. File that under Corrected!

" I mentor the youth for a living "

See you R

[taterguy]

21. Federal Courts have jurisdiction in North Carolina

Therefore, when lawyers are hanging around shooting the shit, they drop 'Rule 11' in casual conversation.

I've heard them do it.

Inaccurate my ass.

[era veteran]

22. This violated no Federal law

So what the flying Perry Mason fuck would it be in Federal Court. So you hang around to pick up the jargon leavings of lawyers. I thought you might be more fun than that. I have fairly extensive knowledge of North Carolina lawyers through watching the Andy Griffith Show. This is what I expect: Barney Fife: "Fly away buzzard, fly away crow, way down south where the winds don't blow. Rub your nose and give two winks and save us from this awful jinx."

Try and keep up See you later R

[taterguy]

23. Take it up with Michal McCann, director of the Sports Law Institute at Vermont Law School

From the fucking article:

Michael McCann, director of the Sports Law Institute at Vermont Law School, said that Demery's contractual rights may have been breached if the ticket he purchased didn't stipulate that he could not sit in the seat unless he was a Virginia fan. McCann also said relocating Demery may have been a First Amendment violation since Virginia is a public school and has less authority to regulate speech than a private institution.

[era veteran]

24. I said under Federal Law*

* That means the United States, not a single state that DOES NOT HAVE this Rule 11 as a state law. Virginia is a state. No Federal law broken. A lawyer would look silly charging someone with a violation of Federal law in this circumstance. ( Not to pick nits)
Maybe we should start applying Catch 22. That would show them.

Why would I waste my time reading some article from your Vermont people?

If a similar thing happened in Rupp Arena we would just kick his North Carolina ass for profaning a sacred place with the colors of the devil.

If it happened in Cuba, he could be arrested for ' Pre crime dangerousness'.

[taterguy]

25. How silly of me to think that the First Amendment is a Federal Law

I guess it's open to interpretation.

[era veteran]

26. So you want to keep this vendetta going against me

Because of your intolerance to zoneless mother fuckers. Why don't you and your people back off.

So the law would be, federally of course, be denying him his civil rights, because he is from N Carolina? Civility and N Carolina aren't used much together around here. A lot of other descriptive words are.

Anyway this bores me now. I'll think up a good thread with a magnificent set up so you can do your worse.

I am thinking about buying an electric bicycle.

[taterguy]

27. The only motherfuckers I'm intolerant of are Slack Motherfuckers

Has there ever been a band from Lexington this good?

I think not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVsydcqxOAE

[era veteran]

29. Kentucky in general is full of musicians. I even cut an

album in 1970. You can't walk down the street without some out of work lead guitar or a French horn player getting in the way. At any given time I have 7 or 8 rock stars working for me. My wife is a volunteer for our local Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour which is heard around the world every Monday night. They do mostly root music that would be hard to compare to these Superchunk dudes.

So how about;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0tuFwk7pzM

or old school;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-sh8V9Pzok

And if you like pop country there are tons of those dudes. I do like Naomi Judd though, she is Ashley's mom.

I think so.

[LiberalFighter]

10. So you think fans should only go to home games?

[taterguy]

11. Only if they want to file a lawsuit about having their seat moved

It's not like they kicked him out.

He still had really good seats, just not great ones.

[petronius]

13. How about if you pay for steak and lobster, but the chef sends out a hamburger

because you look more like a burger-and-fries kind of guy? Even if it was a great burger, that would be pretty unacceptable.

This is just as straightforward: Virginia offered a product, and reneged. If they wanted him to move they should have asked, and offered some sort of incentive - free concessions, perhaps. As it, I think they owe him an apology and some sort of meaningful compensation...

[Chan790]

14. What's being lost here...

is that those seats are frequently not general-public available precisely to insure that nobody not in home-team school-colors is visible in any photograph or video feed. (I used to work for a university athletics department performing media work). We handled it differently ("You can sit here, but you cannot wear this. Also, have a free tee-shirt.") on those occasions when it came up.

I have no idea who scalped those seats but generally they're reserved for parents, major alumni/donors and student seating. They're not available to purchase at any price. Receiving those seats from the university typically comes with an agreement that you can't give them away, sell them or leave the seats vacant.

Yeah, it sucks for him that he got booted from the good seats but he has no legitimate claim to any right to sit there. Generally, the seats ownership/"license" is retained by the university, usage was granted to a specific user-recipient who is not him (obviously) and he could have been charged with receiving stolen property merely for occupying them. (Ironically, scalping is legal in VA but does not extend to any event seat that is not open to the general public.)

[petronius]

15. I don't think it's that simple. There's no suggestion that the seats were limited

to only department-affiliated occupants, or that any step in the transfer was illegal or against any policy that Demery was obligated to follow. They also imply strongly that they wouldn't have objected to a VA-clad stranger sitting there, it was just his apparel that triggered the move. So, I don't think the unauthorized-occupant claim applies (since the university clearly allows the seats to be transferred), and the free speech argument definitely enters in. It seems the legal end would hinge pretty strongly on whether the ticket was marked as non-transferrable, or otherwise clearly restricted.

The approach you describe, and like I suggested, of asking nicely and offering a carrot would be fine. As it is, I think the VA staff was out of line and owes this guy an apology...

[taterguy]

18. I'm out fifty bucks and I don't know of any lawyers that would waste their time for that amount

Not every "unacceptable" situation needs to be rectified in court.

Sometimes it's best to just let things go and get on with life.