Snow flurries drifted around the Carrier Dome Monday night, settling in piles on a ledge above Gate E of the stadium. Further down, past a green “Boeheimberg” sign and a thermometer, four tents sat on the cold concrete in front of the gate’s entrance.

Although temperatures are expected to dip into single digits through Thursday, Syracuse University students camping outside the Dome try not to think about it.

“What I have decided is; if you don’t look at the forecast, it doesn’t exist,” said Brad Slavin, Otto’s Army communications officer, who sat upright in a sleeping bag on his tent’s floor.

Students began camping Sunday night to vie for the best seats at the men’s basketball game against Duke University on Feb. 1. The first groups of four arrived around 9 p.m., when Otto’s army, the Syracuse student section organization, held a lottery to determine positioning.

Otto’s Army president Ben Glidden said the 13-day camping period leading up to the Orange’s first Atlantic Coast Conference game against Duke makes it the section’s longest student camp out. ESPN’s College Gameday program will also be on campus before the game.

“We’ve never really had a campout of this magnitude before,” Glidden said.

Scheduling and demand contributed to the length of the campout, Glidden said. Students can start camping out three hours after the previous home game, which was on Saturday against Pitt. SU’s Martin Luther King, Jr. event in the Dome Sunday pushed the start of camping back to Sunday night, Slavin said.

Glidden expects that more than 1,000 of the roughly 5,000 students attending the game will camp out. Otto’s Army rules dictate that one student must stay in a tent at all times or the group gets sent to the back of the line.

Chris Libonati, a freshman newspaper and online journalism and policy studies major, stayed in his group’s tent Monday overnight. Libonati said he forgot a pillow but chose to rest his head on a backpack. Blankets and schoolbooks, waiting to be read with a flashlight, were scattered throughout the tent.

Libonati said he is perfectly comfortable living in a frigid tent if it leads to prime seating at the Duke game.

Said Libonati, “I’d say it’s completely worth it, but I definitely understand the reservations some people have.”

Published on January 21, 2014 at 2:01 am

Contact Jacob: jspramuk@syr.edu