Ellen Schieber sometimes can’t stand to watch the player introductions at Kansas University men’s basketball games.

She cringes as her fellow students shred newspapers and toss them in the air like confetti as Jayhawk players are announced. She knows what it takes to clean up the mess.

“You want to tell your friends not to get the fieldhouse dirty,” she said.

Schieber, a senior from Fairway, is a member of the KU Ultimate Frisbee Club, which cleans Allen Fieldhouse after several basketball games each year, including Saturday’s game against Nebraska.

“It’s pretty much work,” Schieber said. “We stop for breaks and throw the Frisbee around, but it’s work.”

Cleanup groups get $2,000 in exchange for eight to 10 hours of work from 30 to 40 members. The Facilities Office at the athletics department picks the groups before the season. About 75 applied this year.

“A lot of groups tell me they didn’t have an idea for the size of the job they were getting into, the amount of trash or the size of the building,” said Ron Penry, a physical plant supervisor.

Groups start working shortly after the final buzzer sounds. First, they pick up the large trash in the arena. Then they use leaf blowers to gather the smaller trash, such as the newspaper confetti left at the student sections. They fill about 200 trash bags a game.

Then each walkway and bleacher must be mopped.

“The mopping takes a long time,” said Caleb Cauthon, a freshman from Overland Park who was cleaning Saturday. “You have to do the entire fieldhouse, and that’s a large area.”

¢ KU Ultimate Frisbee Club¢ See the virtual Allen Fieldhouse and get live scores and an updated game story for KU v. Wyoming

Then they follow a similar process in the concourse area.

Penry said the cleanup took eight to 12 hours, depending on the size and experience of the group. It generally takes less time to clean Memorial Stadium because it doesn’t involve mopping.

Penry inspects the fieldhouse after the work is complete and makes the group return if there is more work to be done. Often, they miss some areas with their mops.

“We don’t pay them until they touch it up to our satisfaction,” he said.

Cauthon said the Ultimate Frisbee Club would use the money to travel to out-of-town tournaments. It’s not bad money, he said, for a job most people don’t even think about.

“You forget about the arena when you leave the game,” he said.