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Schools Honoring Military Personnel on Veterans Day

While most of the college basketball world will be focused on the game between North Carolina and Michigan State on the USS Carl Vinson on Veterans Day there are plenty of other schools that are doing their part to honor military personnel. The UNC-Michigan State game will be attended almost entirely by military personnel, who have already been pre-selected, but if you are a veteran and were not selected to be on the ship to watch the game there are other opportunities.

Veterans Can Attend A Handful Of Games For Free On Veterans Day (Credit: AP Photo/U.S. Navy - Seaman Amanda Huntoon)

We have compiled a list of those opportunities based on what the host schools for Fridays games had on their websites as of late on Wednesday night (yes, we sifted through about 120 school web sites with some easier to navigate than others). If you know of any others, let us know so we can add them to the list. Our current list (all start times are local):

Frankly, the fact that less than 10% of the more than 120 hosts are offering any concessions to military personnel on Veterans Day is a bit underwhelming, but we do understand that some schools probably cannot do this to any reasonable degree due to space issues (like Duke, who can only seat 9,314 in Cameron) or due to already rabid demand for tickets (like Kentucky where the fans are crazy to put it mildly). However, the vast majority of the other games will probably have quite a bit of seating available and it would make sense from multiple perspectives for schools to invite/honor military personnel on Veterans Day. Not only do you get some good publicity from this (when else would Longwood get mentioned here?), but you also help pack your arena and give the game an increased energy, which would seem to help the home team.
Most of these schools are also offering additional tickets at a discounted price for friends and family that want to go along for the game. If you are or know of a veteran in the area of one of these games, we highly suggest that you take the opportunity to go see these games and if you are at these games (or just outside in general) thank anybody who has served this country.
nvr1983 (1398 Posts)


nvr1983:

View Comments (4)

  • While it's nice that they do something, the majority of veterans are neither active duty nor retired. Even though I spent five years with the marine corps, I am unable to take advantage of any of these.

  • I believe Wake Forest is offering free tickets to veterans. It isn't on the web site (in fact, there's precious little about Friday's game on the web site), but Bzdelik announced it on a radio show.

  • Aaron--
    It is unfortunate that more schools don't do this, but I figured I would at least try to get the word out so those that are in the area of these games can try to take advantage of the offers.

    WakeFan--
    Thanks for the information. I e-mailed Wake Forest for confirmation and additional details. Once I get that information I will update the post.

  • WakeFan--
    I got confirmation and now the post is updated to include Wake Forest as one of the schools offering the promotion.

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