Allen family could lose seats in namesake fieldhouse
This might be Milton “Mick” Allen Jr.’s last year as a Kansas University men’s basketball season ticket holder.
“I can’t say for sure, but there’s a possibility that we’ll either lose or have to give up our tickets — tickets that have been in our family since 1955,” he said.
Should Allen opt to stay home, a hunk of Jayhawk tradition will be there with him.
Allen, 55, is the grandson of legendary basketball coach Forrest “Phog” Allen, whose 39-season tenure at KU included 590 victories and an NCAA national championship in 1952 — and who is namesake for Allen Fieldhouse.
Allen said his four tickets — fourth row, across from the KU bench — were in jeopardy because KU policies prohibit sons and daughters from inheriting their parents’ tickets.
Seats sold
Allen’s father, longtime city of Lawrence attorney Milton “Mitt” Allen, died in 1988. So when his mother, Isabel Allen, died last spring, the family’s tickets went up for grabs.
Mick Allen, who has missed “no more than four or five games since 1970,” knows now that his family’s tickets are up for grabs. He didn’t know it when his mother died.
“What happened was they sent me the order form like they had before and I sent in the $2,400 for four tickets,” Allen said. “Several weeks went by and I noticed the check hadn’t cleared, so I called and they said this was a change-of-ownership situation and that a committee would determine who would get them.
Milton Mick Allen Jr., the grandson of former Kansas University basketball coach Forrest Phog Allen, holds a photo, taken around 1936, showing his father Milton Mitt Allen, who was on the KU team, with Phog Allen and two other relatives. Allen says his family could lose or have to give up its men's basketball season tickets, which have been in the family since 1955.
“I was told someone would be getting back to me,” he said. “But another four weeks went by and I still hadn’t heard anything, so I called again. And that’s when they told me my seats had already been sold.”
Allen said he wasn’t given the opportunity to match or bid against the new ticket holder’s offer.
“That hurt, definitely,” he said. “You know, I can understand why they did it and I know they need the money — I am not naÃive about this. But it was handled in such an almost-cavalier manner. That’s what bothers me.”
Because he’s a paid-up member of the Williams Fund, Allen was allowed to buy two — not four — tickets in the prime seating area.
“Basically, we’re seven rows up from where we were,” he said. “I have no complaint about that.”
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Allen said he was unsure whether he would be able to keep his tickets next year if the KU Athletic Corporation follows through on plans to adopt a point system for determining who is sold which seats.
Though the switch is only in the discussion stage and has not been approved, several season ticket holders, including Allen, have been told to expect to pay $5,000 for every pair of season tickets in the prime seating area and $10,000 for every four tickets.
Earlier this year, a KU Athletic Corporation audit found 121 season ticket holders in the prime seating area either had not contributed to the corporation’s Williams Fund or had fallen behind in their payments.
The 121 were sent letters, letting them know that to keep their seats they would have to put up $5,000 or $10,000. Otherwise, they would be assigned lesser seats.
Five of the 121 are plaintiffs in a lawsuit accusing the corporation of abusing its authority.
Allen, an attorney in private practice, was not one of the 121 and he is not a party to the lawsuit.
If he’s pressed for $5,000 next year, Allen said he would try to come up with the money.
“I don’t want to put myself in a position of saying what I will or won’t do,” he said. “The question for me, really, is for how long. That would be a very difficult commitment to make for a lifetime.”
Allen’s sister and Phog Allen’s granddaughter, Judy Morris, also has four season tickets in the prime seating area. She and her husband, Duane, bought their tickets upon returning to Lawrence from Vermont in the mid-1970s.
Morris said she, too, would be hard-pressed to come up with $5,000.
“There’s not much I want to say about this publicly,” she said Monday. “I’m hopeful. I’m optimistic. I’m not mad and I’m very sensitive to what the athletic department is going through. I’m just hoping that whatever formula they come up with doesn’t come down to just money.”
Seating formula
Jim Marchiony, associate director of athletics at KU, said concern over season ticket holders having to put up $5,000 was “very premature.”
“These are issues that were in place before (new KU athletic director) Lew Perkins got here,” Marchiony said. ” And we are literally — today — starting the process for formulating the seating-formula process.”
Marchiony said he looked into the Williams Fund’s handling of Allen’s season tickets and came away with the impression that Allen “was taken care of very, very well.”
Allen said he wasn’t mad.
“It was handled in a way that, for me, was hurtful,” he said. “And (Marchiony) is right, I was taken care of, and I’m not alienated from the university. I’m not mad, and if they go to the $5,000 deal — I’ll still be a fan, a huge fan. But it will be difficult to be as unequivocal about the Jayhawks as I am now.”
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