With a limited number of free student tickets available for NIU’s Sept. 27 football game against Iowa State, NIU Athletics Director Cary Groth said students won’t have a hard time finding a ticket to the game.

However, NIU Student Trustee Kevin Miller said he believes forcing students to pick up a ticket is cheating them of fees they’ve already paid to see the game.

“Students are the No. 1 funding source for athletics through their fees,” Miller said. “Every student pays fees, and they may be denied a seat they have essentially paid for because the seat has been sold again.”

Earlier this week, the NIU Athletics Department made a decision requiring each student who wishes to go to the game to pick up a ticket in advance. Starting today, tickets will be available to students with a valid NIU OneCard on a first-come, first-served basis at the Convocation Center box office. No student will be admitted to Huskie Stadium without a ticket.

“We’ve accommodated more tickets than we had at our largest student-crowd [games],” Groth said.

About 5,000 NIU students came to the Maryland game, she said, but Miller disagreed.

“I would be very surprised if only 5,000 students attended the Maryland game,” Miller said.

Groth said the department made this decision to ensure students a chance to get into the game. If students weren’t allowed to pick up their tickets ahead of time, the general public could have purchased the tickets, leaving no seats for students.

Groth said Student Association President Shaun Crisler was contacted about limited student tickets. Crisler didn’t return calls from the Northern Star Tuesday night.

“Our students have really held us up with their numbers, and that’s why we decided to do the student pick-up,” Groth said. “I don’t think we’ll use all [6,000] seats. I think we’re in pretty good shape.”

The pick-up also will allow students to sit together on the east side. At the Maryland game, some NIU students were forced to sit on the west side of the stadium because the east side already was at capacity.

If all 6,000 tickets are picked up, Groth said there are about 400 more seats that could be opened to students if necessary. If members the general public haven’t purchased tickets for the game already, they may not be able get tickets. Student tickets not picked up by Sept. 23 will be available for purchase to the general public the following day.

“I’ll give [tickets] to the students before I sell them,” Groth said.

Miller said even though a limited number of tickets will be distributed, he would like to see all NIU OneCards accepted at the football game.

“As far as I’m concerned, the issue isn’t over,” Miller said. “We’re going to work on the issue, but who knows what’s going to happen at this point.”

Editor in Chief Mark Bieganski contributed to this report.