As a senior gearing up for graduation in the spring, my tenure at this university is quickly coming to a close. With the vestiges of nostalgia already forming in the back of my mind, I decided to attend what would have been the last CSU Wyoming Border War basketball game I’ll ever get to see in the student section, and marveled at my newfound ability to print a ticket online to the game at my own convenience for a small $2 fee.

I registered myself on the website using my student information and was able to print out my ticket in the privacy of my own house rather than making the trek to McGraw, thinking to myself as I did so that the simplicity of the whole process was too good to be true.

It was.

Unbeknownst to me and many other shocked and outraged students, spending ten to fifteen minutes importing all your student information online to reserve a student ticket ahead of time was an absolutely useless endeavor if you showed up to the gates of Moby without your student ID in addition to your ticket.

“Sorry, orders from above say no students get in without student IDs,” the event staff woman stated plainly, wielding the power of her scanner gun, “just go back and get it real quick.”

Unfortunately there could be no “real quick” trip to get my ID from my house. In order to avoid Moby’s post-game traffic and responsibly consume a few beers before the game, I had decided to forgo driving and had walked the half hour to Moby from my house.

I tried reasoning with the event staff, arguing with her, even pleading with her. But as I spoke more fervently of the injustice of being turned away at the door she stone-faced me — her face becoming expressionless and her eyes drifting off, making it quite clear she was no longer listening to me.

Piqued, I demanded to see her manager, but had even less success with the supervisor, who walked up with a swagger reticent reminiscent of his frat-days and regarded me with a smirking condescension.

Becoming frustrated in less than a few minutes talking to this supervisor, I was soon demanding to see his manager as well. After an extended amount of time, a pockmarked and weathered man approached and began explaining that there just wasn’t anything they could do.

“Nothing you can do? I pay thousands of dollars to attend this school. There is a scanner in that woman’s hand and a ticket in mine. I am a CSU student, let me through that door.”

“We need your student ID, we’ve been having a lot of problems with scalpers,” the pockmarked man curtly replied.

Oh of course! I just need to prove I’m a student and didn’t get this ticket off of Craigslist, easily fixable, I assumed.

I quickly pulled up my class schedule for the current semester on my cell phone, which features my full name, the date, and my full class load and pulled out my driver’s license to supplement my class schedule, thus proving that I am, indeed, Kevin R. Jensen, a CSU student paying thousands of dollars to attend this university.

But even that wasn’t good enough. Citing orders “from above,” the pockmarked manager said his hands were tied.

Enraged, I demanded to speak to somebody higher up that could do something to solve this obvious grievance.  “It’ll take a while, wait over there out of the way,” he said.

I was being brushed off.

I understand why the student ID policy was implemented, but the policy was in no way communicated to students — I was but one of a number of students who were turned away at the door Saturday evening.

There was nothing on the website that indicated a student ID would be required, and the tickets that were printed didn’t say a single word about an ID being necessary for entry.

CSU Athletics have done a deplorable job communicating with students about the implementation of their new policies, but I was more shocked at the absolute lack of respect that I received from the event staff when trying to enter the game.

Any event that takes place at CSU is a reflection of the university itself, and even the contracted event staff should embody the spirit of this campus, which I’d like to believe is open, welcoming and respectful. If the event staff is detrimental to this atmosphere, then our athletic department should find another company to contract with.