Out of bounds

Colleges worried about increasingly rowdy fan behavior

When university presidents and athletics officials huddle in Dallas this week to discuss one of college sports' fastest-growing and most serious problems, they won't be talking about blown-out knees, bad officiating, out of control boosters or even academic fraud.

No, the focus of the Sportsmanship and Fan Behavior Summit is the frightening trend that’s turned postgame celebrations into bloodletting riots. It’s the drunken, over-the-top keggers. It’s the rowdies inside and outside campus stadiums bent on outpacing European soccer fan hooliganism.

In Columbus, Ohio, last fall, you had crazies -- let’s not call them fans -- setting fire to cars and looting storefronts after Ohio State beat Michigan to clinch a Fiesta Bowl berth. At Clemson, S.C., a 67-year-old security guard and a female fan were hospitalized after a rush on the goalposts. In Raleigh, N.C., a similar incident at North Carolina State left three people injured.

On the same Saturday in November that those incidents occurred, students overwhelmed University of California security guards in Berkeley, Calif., on their way tearing down the goal posts and Washington athletic director Barbara Hedges said she feared for her life when bottles and debris flew from the stands in Pullman, Wash., after a triple-overtime game between the Huskies and Washington State.

“There are some situations where it has just been miraculous that somebody hasn’t really been seriously hurt or even killed while tearing down the goalpost and stomping around," says Georgia athletic director Vince Dooley, chair of the Dallas summit that begins Thursday. “We had a young lady who was out on the field after we beat Tennessee two years ago. The goalpost came down and she was trampled and seriously hurt."

Kristine Yu, a Georgia pre-med major, was caught in a wave of 15,000 Bulldog fans who stormed the field at Sanford Stadium and caused more than $75,000 in damage. Left unconscious and twitching on the field, Yu spent three days in intensive care before making a full recovery.

Somehow, fans have gone from watching games to becoming part of the show. And that’s not good.

"We’ve dealt with the [player] sportsmanship issue in the past, but I think the growing concern now is with the fans," Dooley says. "I don’t know if it is a larger societal issue or what."

Whatever the cause, those attending the meeting called by Grant Teaff, director of the American Football Coaches Association, hope to turn down the volume on postgame rage. Maybe it’s something as simple as better crowd control procedures, greater on-field security, reinforcing goalposts in concrete or more restrictions on what fans may bring into stadiums.

Perhaps conferences should grade their members on fan behavior. Or promote a no-tolerance policy, automatically arresting anyone who scales a fence and runs onto the field. In worst case scenarios, games could be forfeited.

It’s encouraging to find ADs, conference administrators and even some college presidents taking up the issue. You just hope it’s more than a symbolic gabfest.

Coaches, coaches, coaches ...