SEMO offers spring graduates football season tickets after virus ends school year early

Spring 2020 graduates of Southeast Missouri State University will receive free tickets for the fall football season, according to director of athletics Brady Barke.

Graduating seniors must register their names, emails and phone numbers at www.GoSoutheast.com/2020 in order to receive the mobile season tickets. Students who register by June 1 will be eligible for a drawing to win a Southeast Bookstore gift card, and Barke said 20 winners will be selected.

“[We] thought that there might be a neat opportunity for us to do something for our graduating seniors who really had a rough end of their college careers,” Barke said of the complimentary tickets.

By phone Tuesday, Barke couldn’t say with certainty whether COVID-19 would impact the fall football season, an unknown he said is also facing every other program in the country.

“We really don’t know what’s going to happen,” Barke said. “We don’t know how fall seasons may be impacted, if they are impacted at all.”

Initial guidance on the return of fall sports programs would likely come from the NCAA, Barke said, but noted the university’s participation in the Ohio Valley Conference will add other considerations.

Finding a uniform application among all OVC competitors, he said, “is going to be really difficult” because each university may have a different level of concern based on the prevalence of COVID-19 in its area.

“So we’re having a lot of conversations on a weekly basis, just to talk through what some of those possible scenarios could be so that we can maintain some level of competitive equity,” he said, “while maintaining safety on each individual campus.”

With so much uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, Barke said all the athletics department can do at this point is hope for the best and plan for the worst.

“We’re moving forward as if we’re going to have our fall seasons in the normal way that we would,” Barke said. “But then, internally, we’re also beginning to work through some different scenarios so that we can adapt if we need to as the picture becomes a little bit clearer.”

Some of the scenarios Barke mentioned include possible restrictions regarding the number of fans who could attend a game or the timing of when seasons would actually take place.

“There’s been some discussion about shortened seasons in terms of the number of games or delayed start in that it could be pushed back further into the academic year,” Barke said. “ ... We definitely are discussing some of the alternatives so that we can begin to think about how we would respond to any changes that may have to take place.”

The financial impact of offering season tickets to 1,355 spring graduates — a number confirmed by the university Wednesday — is “very minimal,” Barke said, and is similar to what the Department of Athletics has done with other complimentary admissions.

“This is something that the institution has just made a decision within athletics to be able to provide,” he said, noting no individuals or organizations are underwriting the cost of the gift. “We really just wanted to be able to create a touchpoint and reach back out to those graduates.”

Barke acknowledged that while some graduates may move out of the city or state — which would make attending football games more challenging — the gesture also serves to remind students they are always welcome at Southeast.

“We want [graduates] to know that they’re always welcome back,” he said. “We hope that the graduates have an opportunity to take advantage of it and that we’re playing football and our other sports in the fall.”

Barke credited Athletics Department staffers Nate Saverino and Phillip Lady for the idea to offer season tickets to graduating seniors and give them an opportunity to stay connected to the university.

“Universities are so much better when their alumni are engaged with them,” he said. “And ... not just [for] philanthropic reasons, but just school spirit and pride and recruitment. ... We don’t want COVID-19 to leave a sour taste in the mouths of our graduates because of the way that their time ended.”

“[We] felt like it’s a way to remain engaged with our graduates, congratulate them for their accomplishment and hopefully build lifelong Redhawk fans and family members in the process,” he said of the gift.

Barke, like many, is looking forward to a return to sports, whenever that may be.

“I think a lot of people will be longing for an opportunity to rally around something like sports and be able to come together and enjoy something like that,” he said.

SEMO football, the defending Ohio Valley Conference champion, is scheduled to play five home games, beginning with a Thursday-night opener vs. Dayton on Sept. 3, according to www.gosoutheast.com. The Redhawks are also scheduled to host Murray State on Sept. 26, Tennessee Tech on Oct. 17, Austin Peay on Homecoming weekend, Oct. 31, and Eastern Kentucky on Nov. 14.