Spring Break
The Daily OrangeCamping for court side: Otto's Army, Orange fans, wait days for prize seats at last home game
By Evan Weiss
Posted: 2/26/07, 10:33 PM EST Section: News
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"Someone order food down here?" the Cosmo's deliveryman yelled.
Nobody there had.
"It says, 'Love, class of '92,' and it's paid for," he said.
Menotti Minutillo, a senior information studies major, and co-basketball chair for Otto's Army, then went up the stairs to retrieve the delivery. Minutillo came back down with five pizzas and about a half dozen orders of wings. All of it came from anonymous alumnus.
Minutillo wrote his account of the story on Otto's Army's Web blog dedicated to the weeklong stay. The blog entry, which can be found at cuseline.blogspot.com, was commented on by the anonymous alumnus.
"I think it's awesome that you guys have been posted up for almost week now …
HUGE game tomorrow. Have fun," the alumnus wrote.
Minutillo and representatives of about eight other groups have been braving the cold and camping out at the bottom of the Carrier Dome's Gate E stairs since as early as Feb. 19. They were waiting to get the best seats in the house for Monday's basketball game against Georgetown.
"There's no experience like being in the front row of a Syracuse basketball game," said Harry Shafer, senior television, radio and film major.
Shafer has been at the Dome since Tuesday night, and has slept in a tent on the hard concrete floor for all but one of those nights. He even had to find a substitute for the Saturday evening "Woo Hoo Comedy Hour," which he hosts. He said the end result makes it all worth it.
"Nothing is going to keep me from sitting in the front row for this game," Shafer said.
The line for Monday's game started much earlier than normal, probably because of the magnitude of the game, said Patrick Campbell, manager of the Carrier Dome.
"Because it's Georgetown, because it's the last game of the year," Campbell said.
The sentiment was nearly repeated by Josiah Gruber, a junior computer engineering major who arrived Thursday. He said it's only the second time this year he's slept at the Dome.
"It's Senior Day, it's Georgetown, it's a big game," Gruber said.
About 25 groups were on the "list" by noon Monday. Otto's Army's rules allow for groups of up to four people to sign up for seats at the game, and require that at least one person from the group must be present at all times, or the seats are given up.
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