Tour of Big-12 Stadiums

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Bill Briggs from the Denver Post is taking a tour of the Big 12 stadiums this season to get a first hand view of the shenanigans that take place on game-day. Oh yeah, and he's wearing the opposing team's gear. Heres the intro article:

 

Article Published: Friday, September 12, 2003

college football

The Fan

 

The search begins for the best and worst of Big 12 fans, but no extra armor included in enemy territory

 

By Bill Briggs

Denver Post Sports Writer

 

I'm headed straight for the nosebleed seats.

 

When the fists start flying in the bleachers and pepper spray blends with the scent of popcorn, I'll be there. The Denver Post is sending me to the new heart of fan violence: college football.

 

Once, it was the sweet domain of pep rallies and pompoms, where forearm shivers and chop blocks were the tactics of choice on the field, not in the student section.

 

Of course, that was BCS: Before Countless Simoleons. Since the birth of a national title game - and the gush of money unleashed by the Bowl Championship Series - stadium fights and postgame melees have increased, experts say. The hunger to be No. 1 is apparently making some fans psychotic.

 

Each season, The Post receives complaints from fans who claim to have been mistreated at a college football game. So this fall, we'll grab a seat in the bleachers at each Big 12 stadium. I will mix, mingle and exchange pleasantries with rabid fanatics who bleed Nebraska red, Texas orange or Colorado gold.

 

The twist: I'll be wearing the visiting team's attire each week, and possibly shedding a little blood of my own. The Heartland can be a tough place on an autumn Saturday.

 

Just ask the Losole family from Nebraska. Two brothers and their 51-year-old father were gang tackled and clubbed by Texas fans while leaving the 1999 Big 12 title game at the Alamodome. The Huskers beat the Longhorns 22-6.

 

"We're going to show you how to make a Texas sandwich," someone shouted before the attack. Said 29-year-old Dave Losole at the time: "It was the scariest moment of my life."

 

The family's collective injuries included a broken nose, a chipped tooth, a swollen jaw and an array of bruisers and cuts.

 

Now it's my turn.

 

Quarterbacks are allowed about five concussions before they are forced to give up the game. How many do sports writers get?

 

"If you're smart," said Jerry M. Lewis, an international authority on fan violence, "you'll wear the visiting team's jersey quietly."

 

That's the game plan. To test fan hospitality at all 12 schools, I'll be cheering consistently and calmly each week. Which basically means I won't be screaming, "Nice passing game, ladies!" when Oklahoma sputters at home against a visiting rival. And I have no plans to shout, "Yo, husk this!" while sitting shoulder to shoulder with Nebraska fans.

 

"It will be tamer in the early part of the season, then it will get more violent," predicted Lewis, an emeritus professor of sociology at Kent State.

 

His studies on fan violence show three key trends:

 

Fan brawls and riots are rising in college sports but holding steady in the pro ranks.

 

The formation of the BCS in 1998 stoked the level of stadium violence.

 

The perpetrators are almost always young, white males.

 

And they're not necessarily misbehaving because they're drunk, Lewis said. They just identify far too deeply with their favorite team.

 

"A small portion of the young, white males want to celebrate the victory and that's why fan violence occurs," Lewis said. "They can't tackle and they can't dunk. But they can be a loud, boisterous fan. Violence takes the place of skill."

 

The BCS, which pits the top two college teams at the end of the season, has sent some fans into an emotional tizzy, Lewis said. It also might explain why stadium violence, rare in the 1950s, began to spike in the 1990s, Lewis said.

 

"The importance of winning a championship becomes so much heady medicine for some of these young, white males," Lewis said. "It gives them a sense of place."

 

Flip the switch

 

Of course, players and teams have to share the blame, the professor added. Stadium scoreboards urge fans to "make some noise." Players whip towels above their heads and plead with fans to rachet up their intensity.

 

"They push the envelope up to a point and then they say, 'OK, turn off the switch,"' Lewis said. "Well, old guys like me, and our wives, can turn off the switch. A portion of the young guys can't."

 

It happened to Mike McKinney. Two seasons ago, McKinney was punched in the face by a fellow fan after Texas Tech shut out Texas A&M in Lubbock.

 

McKinney, whose son played center that day for A&M, isn't exactly the kind of guy who goes looking for a scrap - at the time he was Texas Gov. Rick Perry's chief of staff. Today he runs a hospital, which is what McKinney needed after Tech's 12-0 victory.

 

Following the final gun, a swarm of bleary-eyed Red Raiders fans ripped down the goalposts. Then they shoved the steel uprights into the end zone bleachers where McKinney and other visiting Aggies fans were sitting. Then someone slugged McKinney.

 

It took eight stitches to close the gash.

 

Sometimes the "12th Man" can be a real lunkhead.

 

"It was like the Alamo," McKinney told The Associated Press. "They were coming over the wall."

 

But the A&M faithful have done some Assaulting & Maiming, too.

 

Last season, after Nebraska beat the Aggies 38-31 in College Station, Texas, a cadre of Cornhuskers fans burst onto the field to celebrate. They were stopped cold by somber members of the A&M Corps of Cadets - all of whom dress in military uniforms for football games, some of whom march into the stadium with swords. One cadet decked a Huskers fan in the head and knocked him to the turf.

 

But the rules are changing, in part because of one bad day last fall. On Nov. 23, a spree of melees erupted and at least 74 fans were arrested during and after games at Ohio State, Cal, North Carolina State and the University of Hawaii. In Columbus, Ohio, fans set 12 fires.

 

Play nice

 

Before Big Ten games this year, ads featuring conference coaches are broadcast on TV and at the stadiums asking fans to be nice and "respect the game."

 

The Big 12, meanwhile, has banned fans from entering the field after a game. Violators can be prosecuted. For extra security, the conference also requires schools to use surveillance cameras to record any postgame trouble.

 

"This stuff has been in the game manual but there's just more emphasis put on it this year as a result of incidents NCAA-wide, including the Ohio State riots," said Bo Carter, assistant Big 12 commissioner.

 

"We want to keep as much order as possible for the safety of the spectators, the coaches and the student athletes," Carter said.

 

The Post's roving fan inspection - otherwise known as "The Contusion Tour '03" - starts this weekend at an undisclosed school.

 

It will travel through some of the most venomous rivalries in college football. Each week, I will detail the feedback I get - right around the rib cage probably - as I cheer for the visitors amid a sea of homers. We'll also give you a sense of the joy and anguish of a college gameday in the Big 12, one of the most tradition-rich conferences in the nation.

 

Cue the fight song.

 

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,3...1626253,00.html