Late last May, when many students had already been forced to forege the pleasure of reading the CRIMSON in order to study some long-neglected textbooks, a modest, unsensational article announced a rather important decision: the old distribution system for football tickets had been dropped.

This Fall, instead of the bothersome ticket applications due a week and a half in advance, undergraduates will be able merely to present themselves, their identification card, and a signed athletic coupon at the Stadium. If a student wishes to introduce a young lady to the charming spectacle of Ivy football, he can obtain her ticket at the athletic department office any time the week of the game up until noon Saturday.

The quality of seat a student gets--from mid-stripe to end sone--will depend on how early he arrives at the Stadium. Only at the Dartmouth and Yale games will the old class preference system, with its early application complications, appear.

Ticket manager Frank Lunden has set aside a block of approximately 4,300 seats for undergraduates. Past experience indicates this will be more than adequate. He said arrangements have been made to handle the large flow of students just before the game, so that gates will not be hopelessly jammed. He has also promised to keep the ticket office at 60 Boylston St. open and efficient on Saturday mornings until noon in order to make date tickets available to students contracting late dates. In short, he seems to be making every effort to please students.

Lunden recognizes that some seniors may be unhappy over the loss of their previous privileges, but feels that the advantages of the new system are great enough to outweigh senior quibblings.

The merits of the system are obvious; Lunden and the HAA should be warmly congratulated for installing it. But perhaps even more significant is the fact that a new system, however good or bad, is being tried, largely as the result of student action.

On March 9, John Archibald, then an unknown sophomore in Dunster, excited the College with a letter to the CRIMSON charging the ticket office with treating students as "something less than second class citizens" and asked why students must "suffer under this humiliating and corrupt machine which is controlled by a too-easily influenced elite group of retired jocks."

The letter ignited a campus fire, and even Thomas D. Bolles, Director of Athletics, felt called upon to defend his man Lunden.

Andy Schaffer '63, despite a stated desire to avoid them, made headlines when he was appointed chairman of the HCUA investigating committee and began his long probe of the ticket problem. He made headlines, but he also made progress.

Lunden and Bolles, who had feared a hatchet squad, found the Schaffer committee thorough, thoughtful, and modest in its demands. When the probe was finished, the HCUA issued a public report calling for some changes in hockey and swimming ticket arrangements, and privately talked over putting in a simpler football ticket system.

The HDA and the Faculty Committee on Athletic Sports were receptive to both sets of suggestions, and the HCUA probe, which could have been another case of well-meaning but impolitic students butting their heads fruitlessly against an administration wall, ended in positive accomplishment.

The success of the new football ticket system now rests with the students. Lunden knows this first year will be the hardest and asks only for patience and cooperation if things don't run perfectly. If the system works, further mechanical streamlining, such as eliminating coupons at football and other games, may be possible. The most important way students can help the ticket office is by remembering to bring their ID's and coupons to the games and by buying date tickets us early as possible to avoid long lines on Saturdays.

It may seem novel to seniors to see praise for Lunden on the CRIMSON's pages, but Lunden is working hard to be accommodating and his efforts are very helpful. Instead of appearing to harbor a deep distrust of students, he seems very anxious to assist them.