To the editor:

Either pay up or get out. Sounds like extortion to me, as Mrs. Kennedy so correctly put it (Journal-World, June 7). I’ve been watching this season ticket fiasco at Kansas University for a while, and it stinks.

Jim Marchiony says folks in the bleacher area have donated more than others having more comfortable seats and perhaps better viewing. Mr. Marchiony, I say to you, they were donating that because it was affordable to them, not because of the seats they chose. Simply because they wanted to give more money does not mean they love KU basketball more than any other KU basketball fan. Get real. Your logic leaves me.

The fans who were so lucky to have such wonderful seats under whatever terms they were purchased should be grandfathered. As seats become available, use the new plan to fill those vacancies. Stop throwing fans out of the seats they have filled for decades.

The folks who are taking seats away from folks who have had these seats for 20-50 years should say “no way” and wait your turn. This, in my humble opinion, is the respectable approach; extortion, no matter who is pulling it off, stinks.

Does it really matter that the Jayhawk approach is unique to what other university programs are doing? No it does not. Grandfather these old-time Jayhawk fans in and let’s move on to a sensible approach. KU basketball is not going to die.

Richard Heckler,

Lawrence