A new chapter in the long and heated rivalry between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Illinois Fighting Illini takes shape.
Basketball tickets drive the new drama.
The Illini’s famed Orange Krush student section hoped to have 200 members at Saturday’s game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Some of the students raised charitable donations to be allowed on the trip.
On Wednesday night, Orange Krush leaders said Iowa’s athletic department invalidated their tickets. The Iowa Athletics Department released this statement:
The Iowa Athletics Department became aware of a discounted group ticket order for the Iowa-Illinois men’s basketball game on behalf of an Illinois chapter of the Boys & Girls Club. In following up with that organization, it became clear this was not factual. When contacting the individual who made the original ticket order, they admitted to falsely ordering tickets under the non-profit organization.
Iowa Athletics has refunded the original ticket order and donated tickets to the Boys & Girls Club of Cedar Rapids. We look forward to welcoming these kids to a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena this Saturday.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of The Corridor can have all 200, but only have asked for 50 so far.
“This being such a big game, it was really great,” Boys & Girls Clubs of the Corridor Executive Director John Tursi said. “Again, I would go back to this: Our kids and families usually don’t get these kinds of opportunities, so for them to be able to attend a game of this magnitude… that’s really cool and that’s all we thought.”
85 percent of the kids in the boys and girls clubs of the corridor come from families below the poverty level.
Leaders of the Orange Krush from the University of Illinois didn’t think they were doing anything seriously wrong.
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They thought it was okay to use the club’s name while not referencing a specific club.
It’s actually something the group has done for 20 years to go to a road game by usually making up a fake charity.
The Krush takes issue with the University of Iowa waiting so long to reject all 200 tickets bought in September.
It wasn’t until Wednesday the athletics department notified the group the tickets were being revoked.
Now the group can’t get money back for the buses it reserved.
“We’re just going to have to eat the cost of the charter buses and that’s fine,” Orange Krush Vice President Kilton Rauman said. “That’s the risk we took because Iowa does reserve the right to take back the tickets at any point. So, that is the risk that we incurred and we’ll just eat the cost of that.”
The Orange Krush will lose nearly $6,000 for the buses. That’s almost a fifth of the group’s budget.
For more Hawkeyes coverage, follow @HawkeyeHQ on Twitter and Facebook.
EARLIER UPDATE
The Illini’s famed “Orange Krush” student section hoped to have 200 members at Saturday’s game at Carver-Hawkeye arena. Some of those students raised charitable donations in order to be allowed on the trip. On Wednesday night, Orange Krush leaders said Iowa’s athletic department invalidated their tickets.
The Iowa Athletics Department released this statement:
The Iowa Athletics Department became aware of a discounted group ticket order for the Iowa-Illinois men’s basketball game on behalf of an Illinois chapter of the Boys & Girls Club. In following up with that organization, it became clear this was not factual. When contacting the individual who made the original ticket order, they admitted to falsely ordering tickets under the non-profit organization.
Iowa Athletics has refunded the original ticket order and donated tickets to the Boys & Girls Club of Cedar Rapids. We look forward to welcoming these kids to a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena this Saturday.
For more Hawkeyes coverage, follow @HawkeyeHQ on Twitter and Facebook.
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