CAA Accusations Were Personal Attacks, DTH Didn't See Whole Story

In response to the plethora of inquiries, rumors and articles appearing in Monday's paper concerning Saturday's Duke ticket distribution, I would like to defend my personal credibility in this situation.

Matt Dees' Viewpoints column in Monday's edition of The Daily Tar Heel contained several personal attacks on me. Dees noted that the "CAA will never be viewed as trustworthy."

He also stated "selfish human nature often gets the best of otherwise good people."

Whether Dees knows it or not, (and good reporting would hope that he did know exactly who and what he was talking about) he is accusing me and me only with statements like this.

Clint Gwaltney, athletics department director of ticket operations, Shane Parrish, ticket office staff member in charge of student distribution and I choose the starting number for all ticket distributions.

I did not reveal this number to anyone, not even my assistant director, until Saturday morning. The three of us picked Saturday's number Thursday evening around 5:30 p.m., when we were the only people in the building. No one else was privy to this information until Saturday. Period. To suggest otherwise is to infer that one of us cheated.

As for people knowing the number Wednesday, it simply isn't possible, because the number didn't exist.

What is interesting, however, is Dees' claim about the "source" and the special number they supposedly thought was going to be picked.

Dees said the source e-mailed him "Friday night before 'predicting' that the number was going to be about 55,750. It was 55,774."

That means that the supposed people who knew the "magic number" were 24 numbers off.

Please realize, however, that they were 24 off in a very detrimental way. According to the numbers Dees presented, these people would have been the very last 24 people in line.

If they received tickets at all, they would arguably get the worst seats in the house. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?

I would like to say that during my tenure as director of student ticket distribution I have done the best job I knew how to inform students of how our system works and to help them all have a fair chance at receiving tickets.

Earlier this year when the system was changed to curtail cheating, I wrote a guest column explaining the details for the students. The DTH chose not to print that article.

Last Thursday I drew an underclassman number for Saturday since I knew that there would be very few tickets for underclassmen.

I wanted to help them out by printing the number so that many of them would see where they fell in line and could decide whether or not to even come down to the Smith Center.

I called the DTH with this information, but it was not printed in Friday's paper.

Dees' comments on "selfish human nature" hit me hard.

I am not shy to say that if you ask anyone who knows me, which Dees nor the majority of his staff does not, selfish is one of the last things they would call me.

Dees said he wanted to do something about this so "we don't have to worry about one of our fellow students screwing us over."

That "fellow student" is me and me alone.

I am the sole student in charge of this operation, and I take that comment with a great deal of personal offense.

The Duke distribution was not rigged, and to suggest otherwise without proof, but based on rumors, is unprofessional and entirely unfair to me and the CAA.

Obviously, the DTH is not a fan of the CAA and its role in student ticket distribution. T

That being said, the paper's stance toward CAA still does not warrant such a personal attack on the credibility of the process or me.

Kerry Slatkoff

Carolina Athletic Association

Ticket Distribution Director