Life as a Sports Usher: Episode 10 - Laying Down the Law
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by Rawbeezeitz
Just one quick observation from the BC-Bowling Green game. When you’re a fan at a game, and the outcome is no longer in doubt, you’ll either get out early to beat traffic, or you’ll stay and watch your team run the score up. As QB Matt Ryan and #4 Boston College (unbelievable, right?) continued to pass the ball, despite a 35 point lead against BGSU, the fans were cheering, and I was irritated. As an usher, when the game is essentially over, you want teams to just run out the clock so you can sit down somewhere.
Now to the Patriots game. This may have been my most difficult, yet most entertaining game to work. I got stuck taking tickets, which wasn’t that bad. I was working next to my friend, who is an attractive young woman, which made time fly by. The ongoing joke of the day was a fellow employee who looks like a 2/3 scale clone of Bob Dylan.
We were both working male ticket holder lines (lines are divided by gender for the pat downs), which meant that my friend was incessantly hit on by drunk guys. It was pretty funny to watch. We counted 10 guys who asked her to pat them down. Oddly enough, I had 1 guy express a desire for me to pat him down. Drink responsibly, people.
Taking tickets is a monkey’s job, only we do it with a smile, and we know how to tell people where their seats are. And it’s pretty light-weight work, as opposed to the poor SOBs doing pat downs in front of us. They have to do about 700 squats and rub down 700 strange men.
Before the gates opened, a helicopter flew low over our gate, then turned and landed on the nearby practice field. And out came Bob Kraft, owner of the Patriots and Emperor of Foxborough. Now there’s a guy who knows how to show up with style. Although, had he landed in the Stadium at the 50 yard line, that would be truly high class.
After taking tickets, I got sent on break. I had a nice chicken sandwich, some cigarettes, and went up to the Managers to be redeployed. They like this. They’ll give you a good spot if you ask them to be redeployed instead of waiting around for them to get you. One of them also calls me a “veteran” because I’ve been working there for 2 whole months now. This also means that I get to choose where I go.
I got deployed to Section 140, which is in the end zone by the lighthouse. These sections offer a great view, but hordes of standing room only (SRO) people, who are the natural rival of the usher.
Everything was going fine until someone complained about two dudes who were standing in the aisle. I went down to talk to them, and they refused to budge, or show me their tickets, until I said “You guys can either leave this section, or leave the Stadium.” That got them moving.
This turned into a whole ordeal, as they complained that someone was in their seats 2 sections over. I made a mistake and didn’t check both of their tickets, just one of them. One of them really was in the section they claimed to belong to. After much leg work, they both decided to stay in the standing room area, and the issue was resolved.
During the second half, some drama erupted right next to me in my SRO area. Some guy had sidled his way in front of some other guy, so the guy who was there first couldn’t see anymore. Both men were extremely hammered. Some angry words turned into pushing and shoving, which was when I stepped up. Now, I’m not a strong guy, and I’m definitely not intimidating, so I don’t even try to scare people with any sort of implied threat of violence. My power is my ability to eject you, or recommend you get arrested. So I stand in between these drunks and say “Guys, you know I’m security, right? Why don’t all of you just calm down so you can stay here and enjoy the rest of the game?” This was enough for one of them, but not the other one, the man whose “spot” had been stolen. Then the cavalry came…orange shirts! About 10 TeamOps personnel swarmed to my spot, which quickly quieted things down. Also, the guy who stole the spot left, and that allowed things to cool off. It’s nice to know that the cameras are watching your back and not just the opposing sideline.
There were some minor incidents. People refusing to put their cigarettes out, people not understanding the concept of standing behind a line, some guy who kept spitting into a big mug, looking tipsy and bleary eyed about to puke (but he didn’t), chasing off-duty vendors down into the section because they didn’t have tickets. Stuff like that.
Then we nearly had a brawl on our hands. There were five guys in the last row of my section who were standing. This pissed off the standing room people behind them, because they couldn’t see. One kid starting screaming obscenities at the last row people. So I started screaming at the kid. Then it settled for about 5 minutes, and erupted once more as the last row guys turned around and barked back at the kid and his friends. That’s when it had to stop. I beeped my supervisor and stood in between the people. It was essentially a contest between two groups of 5 guys each, arguing about whose was bigger.
One of the last row guys threatened to cut one of the SRO guys’ throats. Then the SRO guy (who was about 25, and the last row guys were in their early 40’s) said “Dude, I’m about 12 years younger than you, that’s like threatening your nephew.” I couldn’t help but laugh.
Eventually the supervisor came over and calmed things down.
I’m still waiting for my first ejection as an usher, and I’m really excited for it. I think we handled the situations perfectly, but any more BS and ejections were imminent.
Here’s a tip for anyone who has crappy tickets but wants to move down to good seats near the end of the game. As people are leaving, ask them for their tickets. Even if we see the exchange, the ticket is what matters, not who holds it (so long as it is legally acquired). We will let you down into the good seats.
At each half’s 2 minute warning, an usher will go down the aisle, crouch/kneel at the bottom until the half ends, then stand there. We call it dropping. At the end of the 4th quarter, I dropped. After the game, I’m standing, waiting for people to leave, and the Patriots cheerleaders run off the field right in front of me. They’re wearing tight tops with plunging necklines, and they ran right underneath me, about 6 feet below where I was standing. Yes, the view was FANTASTIC.
Oh yeah, when Ellis Hobbs broke up a pass in the waning moments of the 4th quarter, he celebrated with the fans about 5 feet in front of me. That was also cool.
After the game, a couple of us wanted to have some beers in the parking lot as we waited for traffic to clear up. But we didn’t have any. We had been told there was a liquor store across the street from the Stadium. So we walk about 2 miles starting from the Foxborough woods and the employee parking lot, and ending at a liquor store that had closed 10 minutes before we had started walking. Disappointment.
But the walk was cool. Some people have crazy tailgate set-ups. And no matter where you were in a parking lot, you could hear the Red Sox playoff game on the radio from somebody’s car. When the Sox went up 4-0, the parking lot went nuts.
HOWEVER, right next to our cars, was a group of TeamOps employees, about 10 or so, tailgating. See, we tailgate after the games. They had sandwiches, chips, and glorious beer. I only knew one of them, but they were all pretty cool. They gave us some free beer, and we chilled there for about 2 hours. It was nice. The next Patriots home game is the 28th. And I will be bringing at least one 30 of Budweiser, my mini tailgating grill, and some beer battered brats.
I can’t wait to see if the cheerleaders are wearing any sort of Halloween costumes. Sexy schoolgirl, perhaps?
