GATE E — The question with Carmelo Anthony — a campus idol and national commodity at 18 — is not what he has signed this year but what he has not. In addition to hats, balls, jerseys, T-shirts, sneakers, posters and ticket stubs, cross a 40-ounce bottle of Olde English 800 off the list.

‘I realized I had a black Sharpie, and I just said, ‘Yo Melo, sign the bottle,’ ‘ said Matt Fegarsky, a Syracuse University junior who landed Anthony’s signature early Tuesday morning while camping outside the Carrier Dome, along with about 150 others, for the opportunity to buy Final Four tickets.

With a capacious smile, Anthony obliged, scribbling ‘Carmelo Anthony #15.’

It was 12:10 a.m., as Monday became Tuesday, and Anthony, along with teammates Kueth Duany, Hakim Warrick and walk-on Andrew Kouwe, had just arrived at the Carrier Dome toting a box chock full of bags of Tostitos and Doritos.

‘Hakim and I were watching Channel 4 back at the house,’ Kouwe said. ‘We saw everyone out here and thought, ‘We should get them some food.’ They’re out here supporting us. We want to support them.’

Kouwe, who almost assuredly will not play in Saturday’s national semifinal at the Louisiana Superdome, nonetheless took the lead in collecting the necessities at Kimmel. Swept up by the joy of autographing copies of Monday’s Daily Orange, he volunteered to take the $31.68 hit on his SUpercard.

From there, the players drove to Gate E. Anthony pulled up in his Chrysler Concorde and hopped out, his headlights still on, his engine running, his doors unlocked and the netting cut down from the Albany rim hanging in plain sight from his rearview mirror.

A mystified bystander suggested that Anthony consider shutting off and locking his car.

‘Nah man,’ Anthony responded without hesitation. ‘It’s fine.’

The players waded through lawn chairs, bunched-up blankets, sleeping bags and television cameras to reach the muddy mantle below Gate E. Students mobbed them, basting Anthony in rhythmic resonations of his newest nickname: One More Year.

The players stuck around for only 10 minutes but served their purpose: invigorating and feeding students. Said Kouwe: ‘We needed to keep their spirits high.’

Some managed to keep their spirits high by, well, getting high.

‘We were waiting for a fight between the people who had pizza and the people who were high,’ said New Orleans-bound sophomore Brooke Orr. ‘You could see it in their eyes.’

There was no fight. In most cases, eyes were not bloodthirsty but bloodshot. By 3 a.m., fatigue, coupled with Old Milwaukee, Olde English and simply old beer, had sedated many students.

On the lower level of the stairs, students slept en masse. On the middle level, some watched television. In many cases, it was impossible to tell whether a chair, piled high with blankets, was occupied or not. Some students, such as one sleeping on a slab that ran up the stairs, looked positively mummified.

The temp, meanwhile, dropped to 20 degrees. ‘I was in shorts Friday,’ junior Rory O’Fee said. ‘It’s like, ‘Ha, April Fools, sorry, it’s still winter.’ ‘

‘I was thinking about (what it would be like) being homeless,’ O’Fee added. ‘I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be out here every night.’

Carter Hansen, a sophomore from Aspen, Colo., who stood at Gate E wearing a sleeping bag, thinks he could hack it. Two summers ago, Hansen camped out on a glacier during a trip to Talkeetna, Alaska. Those nights, as temperatures dipped to five degrees, Hansen buried himself in his down-stuffed sleeping bag. Ultimately, he’d overheat and slip out of his pants and long sleeves.

Likewise, early Monday, as the sun began to climb, Hansen kicked off his pants inside his sleeping bag, which bared only his face.

Down the stairs, freshman Evan Presser entertained himself by playing the name game, the rhyme game and waging best-of-50 thumb wars with friends.

Presser claimed to be the first student to set up camp along with fellow freshman Rob Frank — arriving at 2 a.m. Monday. Presser spent 2 to 11 a.m. Monday outdoors, dropped into classes for three hours, returned to the Dome from 2 to 7, warmed up from 7 to 9:30 p.m., then returned for the duration, from 9:30 until 8 a.m.

Despite occasional flurries and steady boredom, students stayed put in the name of securing one of about 500 tickets available to student season-ticket holders beginning at 10 a.m. yesterday. For their tranquility and dedication, they deserve praise.

Two issues, however, must be addressed the next time tickets for an event of this magnitude go on sale.

The first is how Dome staff handled students entering the building. Sophomore Kim Pace insisted about 100 people cut her in the process. She still landed tickets, though she will sit in the 23rd row of Section 641 and might have had a shot at a lower-level seat had she not been cut.

Dome manager Pat Campbell, while helpful (the Dome supplied free coffee to students) and patient, should have arranged for numbered wristbands to be distributed to students before they entered the building.

‘Usually,’ Campbell said, ‘students police themselves. Sometimes, they make a list of names or something.’

Sometimes, but that expectation is unfair. So is camping out all night only to be cut in the morning.

In the end, every student who camped out was able to buy a ticket. In fact — because of a lack of demand — students without season tickets were able to walk up, stand in line for 15 to 30 minutes and buy tickets by 12:30 p.m.

This, in turn, led to the second serious problem. At least a handful of students who camped out secured their own ticket, returned to the Dome with a friend’s ID and attempted to buy another ticket, with the intention of selling the ticket to turn a profit.

For some, this worked. The box office required only that students show their SUID and answer correctly when asked to provide their home address.

How about requiring two forms of ID and asking miscellaneous questions, such as one’s date of birth and home address?

Granted, it’s impossible to entirely prevent students from buying tickets for the purpose of selling them. The NCAA is at fault in that no ‘student’ label appears on tickets, meaning a student ticket can be used by anyone.

And students know it. Consider that a survey yesterday of 40 people leaving the box office with a ticket in hand produced 23 bound for New Orleans and 17 seeking to sell.

To those who did camp out and who intend to use the ticket, enjoy. To those who intend to sell, congratulations. The system is utterly beatable.

Chris Snow is a staff writer at The Daily Orange, where his columns usually appear on Thursdays. E-mail him at [email protected].

Published on April 1, 2003 at 12:00 pm