“Bring the record home” branched into “Turn the students away” Thursday night at Chick Evans Field House when more than 1,000 NIU students were unable to get into the sold-out game.

In an attempt to break the Illinois women’s collegiate basketball attendance record, the NIU athletic department—headed by marketing and promotions—went all-out to fill the fieldhouse to capacity for the game between NIU and DePaul. It succeeded, but came upon some difficulties in the process.

With 2,000 places set aside for reserve seats, 3,000 for students and 1,000 for general admission, the athletic complex was occupied by 6,118—breaking the state record.

However, when the student sections were filled, the doors were closed to all NIU students. There were still some general admission seats available, but the only way to gain entrance was to purchase the remaining tickets. Some students chose to pay the $3, while others left or waited around the fieldhouse lobby.

Eventually, all the tickets were purchased and the game was officially sold out.

NIU students were upset because they already pay an athletic fee each semester as part of their general fees. The fee enables NIU students to attend Huskie athletic events without purchasing a ticket in advance. And if there were still seats available just prior to game time, the students felt they should get them first.

“We did not make the students pay,” said Tom Freidel, Huskie ticket manager. “We set aside a section (south section) for paying customers, a small amount of reserve seats. We had to guarantee the seats.”

Student Association President Huda Scheidelman, who was one of the students paying the $3, sent NIU Athletic Director Gerald O’Dell a memo asking for a policy to be set for future events. Scheidelman used the argument that students should not be charged twice to get into Huskie events.

Freidel said “something different” will have to be done in future cases. He said the athletic director, business manager and himself would have to get together to talk about the issue.

The 3,000 students admitted, just under 50 percent of the fieldhouse population (6,076), is proportionately larger than other Division I schools allow.

O’Dell said NIU has “no written policy” about attendance, but that some kind of “creative seating plan” will have to be devised.

“We have to learn from this experience,” O’Dell said. “I think we can look toward the same issue in the future.”

O’Dell cited the appearance of the DePaul and Evansville men’s teams next season as a means to organize a fieldhouse seating policy. He also mentioned the future possibility of a DeKalb exposition center to alleviate these types of problems.

The last time the fieldhouse sold out was Jan. 18, 1986 when the men’s basketball team played Mid-American Conference foe Central Michigan.