Sporting News Magazine, May 2004
Is That Seat Taken?
By Sonny Lufrano

A son learns many things from his father. How to tie his shoes. How to make a decent corned beef sandwich. How to stare at a woman's cleavage without staring at a woman's cleavage. But of all the things my father taught me as a child, none was more important than when he gave me his equivalent of the key to the city; the knowledge of how to sneak into a better seat at a sporting event.

Along with spanking children and real butter on popcorn, sneaking into better seats is a lost American art. The advent of new stadiums around the country has been a terrible inconvenience to my fellow seat-borrowing brethren and me. Take Chicago for example. The old Chicago Stadium, much like Madison Square Garden, was built without dividing walls inside the arena. For seat sneakers, this meant you could buy a 400 level ticket for $15, go to your assigned seat and then walk down to the 200 level and take an empty $75 seat that no doubt belonged to some capitalist scum. The new stadiums, like Chicago's United Center or Washington's MCI Center, were built with walls that separate fans like chain link fences separate neighbors. The only way you can go from level 400 to level 200 without a ticket is to hop the wall, something even the oldest, glaucoma-stricken usher can spot.

Despite the perennial new construction, it is still fairly easy to sneak into better seats at most sporting events. Like anything in life, all you need is a Belichick-like game plan and the courage to follow through with it.

Step 1: Dress For Seating Success
If you're going to sit in expensive seats you should look like you can afford them. That means no retro jerseys if you've never actually appeared in a rap video and no knapsacks if you're over 25. "It's not like it was twenty years ago," said Eddie Gomez, a former usher at Chicago's United Center. "You can't always tell by how people dress. I've seen some of the bummiest looking people sitting in the good seats and some of the classiest looking people sitting way up top but that's usually the exception."

Step 2: Scouting
Your job is to find the laziest looking usher in the building and attack him like Oliver Miller attacks thin crust pizza. Old ushers are generally more difficult because they realize their lives have been defined by usherdom. Young ushers, who are becoming me and more prevalent, still believe they will one day become doctors or lawyers and that ushering is just a summer job that's lasted a little longer than expected. Find any young usher talking to another young usher of the opposite sex and you'll find a section that's easier to penetrate than the Mavericks zone.

"The average age of guest services personnel (the artists formerly known as ushers) is about 17," said Troy Brown, director of "At Your Service," the in-house events staffing company that handles events at The United Center and U.S. Cellular Field. "Because so many of our events go so late at night, it's hard to attract older people to this line of work. So we end up hiring mostly inner-city youth."

Step 3: The Approach
Load up on food and beverages. The more items you have in your hands the less likely the usher is to ask to see your tickets. Just don't amble. You must walk with purpose. Think David Wells on his way to the buffet. After all, you paid good money for these seats!

Step 4: Be Closing
As awkward as it may seem, you have to walk right up to the people sitting closest to the seats you want and give one of them a good slap on the back. This will let the usher know that you have to be in the right seats because your friends already beat you there. When you give your neighbor a slap, say something like, "How bout them (insert name of team you are watching). Unofficial research shows that this simple slap on the back increases your chances of remaining in those seats by 67%.

Seat sneakers are always a moment away from being out in the cold, but no sense worrying about it. You did your homework. You wore the right clothes. You found the right section. If you get caught, you get caught. But don't spend the whole time looking over your shoulder. Enjoy the game. And Go (insert name of team)!