Have you ever read the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson? If you haven't--you should--I'll give you a quick plot recap. It takes place in a small town in America in which the head of each family has to draw a white slip of paper. One of the families, the Hutchinsons, draws a piece of paper with a black dot on it.

The dot symbolizes that they've won the lottery, though it's not exactly a prize you want. The family then repeats the process within itself, and Tessie Hutchinson, the mother, "wins" the family lottery. Her prize is she's then stoned to death by the townspeople, including her husband and children, to somehow ensure a good harvest season.

As you can see, it's a light-hearted romp about American life filled with laughs and tears of joy. This is not the case with the lottery they're running in Columbus, Ohio, though, as the folks there don't seem to be enjoying theirs nearly as much.

The run-up to another Ohio State football season is bringing moans and groans, not from players in training but from alumni association members upset with a new lottery that decides which of them may buy game tickets.

"It seems incredibly unfair," said Don Dennis, a ticket buyer since 1991. "It's unbelievable to me, the fact that I've been participating for so many years means nothing."

Well, Don, it only seems unfair to you because you've always been able to get tickets to any game you damn well pleased. For all the thousands of Buckeyes fans who never got a chance to go to a game before, you're always getting tickets probably seemed incredibly unfair as well.

While a move like this is obviously going to be very unpopular amongst fans who have always had access to tickets, it really is the only way to ensure that everybody who wants to attend a game has a fair shot of doing so.