After last week's ZonaZoo mess that shut hundreds of students out of the Iowa game, the UA is calling on those fans to show up even earlier today.
The section will begin scanning students four hours before kickoff to keep the ZonaZoo entrance safer for students attending the game against Cal, UA athletic director Greg Byrne said in a statement this week.
The athletic department works directly with the official ZonaZoo crew, as well as all other entities involved with the student section, Byrne said.
"They want the same things we do, which is a full student section, and at the same time, too, we want them to handle themselves in a first-class manner," he said.
There was no way for officers at the Iowa game to count each ZonaZoo seat and then correlate that with the number of people waiting to get in, said Sgt. Juan Alvarez of the UA Police Department. He said officers had to guess how many people they could safely let in.
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"At the point that we did close it down, there might have been room enough to let some people in, but at that point it was deemed that we cannot do that safely," Alvarez said. "It's been our experience in the past that when we reopened it, people rushed the gate, and that's when people get hurt."
The UAPD made 11 arrests Saturday, but Alvarez said none of them was at the ZonaZoo entrance after it was closed. He said some people outside ZonaZoo were "escorted out and ejected."
For students hoping to get into the section today, the best thing to do is arrive early and follow the directions of the staff and police, he said.
Purchasing a ZonaZoo pass does not guarantee a student admission to the game. The section is limited to the first 10,000 students and runs on a first-come, first-served basis. This year, 11,500 ZonaZoo passes were sold to students, said James Francis, associate director of athletics.
"If you want to get a guaranteed entrance to the game," Alvarez said, "buy a general admitted ticket."
About 600 students were shut out of the ZonaZoo section for the Iowa game.
"I wanted to get into the game like everyone else, but I was kind of angry, mostly just because of how I was treated," said UA student Kevin Zimmerman, who arrived at the game about 90minutes before the 7:30p.m. kickoff.
"I realized I probably showed up too late, but I felt that the cops didn't handle it well at all."
Officers at the game poorly communicated the closure of ZonaZoo, Zimmerman said. Once the section closed, he said officers created a wall to block people but had no real way of telling everyone to leave.
Rikki Mitchell is a University of Arizona journalism student who is an apprentice at the Star. Contact her at starapprentice@azstarnet.com
