As alcohol-related incidents at college football games continue to escalate, many athletic departments are rethinking their tailgating traditions. And they are coming up with some innovative ideas in the process.

By David Hill

David Hill is a former Assistant Editor at Athletic Management.

For the University of Delaware, the impetus for making changes came after a phone call from the local hospital. Twenty-three seriously drunk Blue Hen tailgaters were overloading the staff, almost causing the emergency room to shut down.

South Dakota State University was changing from NCAA Division II to I-AA in football and wanted to create a strong game-day tradition with the move. The school was looking to build an exciting atmosphere but didn't want to turn Saturdays into alcohol-centric afternoons.

At North Carolina State University, it was a nightmare: Two people were shot to death near the stadium before a Wolfpack home game. It didn't happen on land owned or controlled by N.C. State, but news reports around the country noted that both the victims and perpetrators were tailgating, and, unfairly or not, the university was associated with the tragedy.

Tailgating can be a boon and a bane, sometimes on the same day. One of the beloved traditions of college athletics, it brings together a university community like few other events. It's a happy day in the autumn sunshine, with families and old friends sharing picnics, kids tossing footballs, and everyone looking forward to a good game. But it can also be a disaster waiting to happen. Usually, the scene involves alcohol, and things can easily be taken to excess, especially as crowds thicken and self-control wears thin. It's not too hard for a catastrophe to occur, or for fans to quietly start staying home on game day.

In response, some athletic departments are starting to rethink the tradition of tailgating. They are trying to rein in the alcohol consumption and make the experience more family-friendly. They are policing tailgating areas more thoroughly. They are putting rules in place where there were none before. But, with these changes, some athletic departments are also meeting stiff resistance.

LESS ALCOHOL, MORE TICKET SALES
In 1989, Delaware administrators noticed a problem at home football games. First, lines of cars entering the parking areas around the stadium were getting very long as tailgaters began arriving as early as 4 a.m.—three hours before the lots were open and seven hours before gametime—to get prime spots. "And people were still in the lot at 9 or 10 o'clock at night," says Edgar Johnson, Athletic Director at Delaware.

"At a typical homecoming game back in the '80s, we'd have 40,000 people on our property: 20,000 in the stadium and 20,000 tailgating outside," Johnson continues. "I couldn't have two police forces, one in each place, at the same time. We said this is wrong and this has to change."

Delaware tried various solutions, such as banning beer kegs, with varying degrees of success until the problem reached a tipping point in 1999. "Christiana Hospital called our public relations command center at the stadium and said, ‘Don't send us any more drunks,'" Johnson says. "‘You've essentially shut down our emergency room.'"

With the support of the university administration and trustees, Delaware adopted a new tailgating policy: When the game starts, anyone on the property needs to be either in the stadium or driving away. Further, when the fourth quarter ends, tailgating can resume for only one hour. And there will no longer be re-entry with pass-out checks or hand stamps.

The policy was announced in letters that went to every season ticket holder, in fliers with single-game tickets, on the radio, and on television. The plan was to educate fans and non-spectating tailgaters while slowly but firmly ratcheting up enforcement.

"We got tremendous public resistance to the idea," recalls Johnson. "We were ‘stopping all the fun,' we were ‘the fun police.' Even the local newspaper wrote an editorial saying it was probably too strict a policy. But we went ahead with it. We spent the first year gently enforcing it, getting a little stricter with each game. Then, for the second game of the second year, we said, ‘That's it, that's the policy, everybody should be educated by now.'"

The resolve paid off. From 8,000 season tickets sold at the time of the emergency-room incident, Delaware is now at 11,000, and Johnson credits the new policies. "Before, the environment here attracted people who wanted to play drinking games, get drunk, and didn't care about the football game," he says. "The people here now care about the contest, and we're seeing more families. We also went from those 23 alcohol-poisoning cases at the emergency room to zero cases the following year."

Delaware also made the in-stadium experience more attractive to lure people into the alcohol-free, more controllable atmosphere. The band marches through the parking lot, signaling that it's time to enter the stadium, where concessions stands are open well ahead of kickoff, and parents with small children are greeted by a family fun zone. Activities include face painting, an exotic-animal petting zoo, and appearances by the Blue Hen mascot, cheerleaders, and dance teams, all helped by sports-marketing students. "The idea is to give families with young children something to do, because when they come to tailgate, it's very difficult to keep a child's attention for two hours before kickoff," Johnson says.

The main lesson from Delaware's experience, Johnson says, is perseverance and firmness in enforcement. "Changing a culture is very, very difficult, and it takes commitment from the leadership of the institution and backbone from those who have to enforce the new policy," he says.

PARKING PASSES REQUIRED
The nightmare at N.C. State's 2004 home opener didn't take place on university property. But since the double-murder, the university has taken control of the land where it happened. And taking control as much as possible is one of two overriding ways to keep tailgating safe, says Shannon Yates, N.C. State's Assistant Athletics Director for Varsity Sports Administration and Game Operations. The other is working as closely as possible with local law enforcement.

N.C. State's initial mechanism for controlling the grounds is through parking permits. When Wolfpack season ticket holders get their ticket packages each year, they also get parking passes color-coded for each home game of the season. Single-game ticket buyers must buy the passes for $10. The permit requirement applies not only to university-owned land, but also to the adjacent state fairgrounds, and the private property near the stadium that the university now leases.

The parking passes are required at all three areas as much as two days before certain big games. "We don't have season permits," Yates says. "The color changes every game, and our law enforcement and parking people know that, and they don't let people in without the proper permit.

"The day of the game, we take complete control of the lots at 7 a.m.," Yates continues. "If we find people who somehow got in, we'll tow their cars away. The lots open four hours before kickoff."

Just as important, Yates says, is thorough planning with law enforcement, which in her case includes university police, the city of Raleigh, Wake County, and the state Highway Patrol. Each agency is represented in extensive meetings before home contests, and Yates gets a run-down of the number and location of officers deployed in and around the stadium.

It's up to police, not athletic department personnel, to enforce the state and local alcohol laws, Yates says, but she can call on any law enforcement personnel at any time. "No one can say there aren't going to be people who will overindulge, but you do the best you can and be in as many places as possible," she explains. "Your policy's no good if everyone knows you're not going to enforce it or just look the other way."

ZERO-PROOF TAILGATING
Football Saturdays at Louisiana Tech University are proof tailgating doesn't depend on something of a certain proof. The school's home, Ruston, La., is dry, but that doesn't stop Louisiana Tech from putting on a good time.

The key is that Louisiana Tech takes the lead in how fans spend their time outside the stadium. Activities occur in an area called "Tailgate Alley," where Tech rents out about 90 parking spots. The renters—businesses, alumni, community groups, and ordinary fans—pay $500 for the season.

Each home game features a theme and a tailgate cooking contest complete with related decorations. "When we played Hawai'i, we had a luau. When we played North Texas State, we had a fajita-cooking contest," says Bill Graham, Special Events Director for the Tech athletic department. "For the Boise State game, we had a western theme, with the motto ‘Lasso the Broncos,' and a lot of barbecue."

Judging is done by other Tech student-athletes, and a plaque goes to the winner. "We've had the volleyball team, the softball team, the men's basketball team, and a soccer team judge the food," Graham says. "They wear their uniforms so the fans know who they are. The fans get to know them, and that helps those particular sports."

In addition, Tech often sets up kids' climbing and sliding equipment for certain big games. "During the pre-game, the band marches through Tailgate Alley playing our fight song. We have a tremendous turnout, and it's alcohol-free," Graham says. "I can't guarantee that somebody doesn't sneak something in, but there's nothing visible anywhere. We've had no problem with an out-of-control area, none at all."

A similar fun-without-drinking approach is taken at Boise State University, where a state law prohibits alcohol at public educational institutions. While an alumni center hosts a game-day party with alcoholic beverages across the street from the stadium on private property, and total enforcement of the alcohol ban isn't realistic, the BSU athletic department aims to provide ample entertainment to keep the focus on sober fun, says Brad Larrondo, Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing and Promotion.

The events center on two spots. First, there's a tailgate area designated for about 400 corporate sponsors and donors, where the athletic department provides music and food. "It's a secured, invitation-only area we offer exclusively to those companies that provide a major source of funding for us," Larrondo says.

The other focus area is the Hall of Fame plaza in front of the stadium's main entrance. "We have a concert series, the pre-game show, and sponsors with booths, samples, and hand-outs," Larrondo says. "We have some TV monitors that show other games. One Saturday, we had our men's basketball team out there shooting baskets with kids and signing autographs. Our other sports teams sometimes sell Bronco merchandise. We try to make it entertaining without alcohol."

CREATING A NEW TRADITION
Tailgating had not been a significant part of South Dakota State football when the program played in NCAA Division II. But as it prepared for its inaugural season in Division I-AA play in 2004, administrators traveled to other venues and gathered ideas on how to change that. The result has crystallized in an area around the stadium known as the Backyard, an open field where tailgating is carefully incubated. "We decided we wanted to have a gameday experience, not just a football game," says Keith Mahlum, Assistant Athletic Director for External Affairs, "and it's mushroomed in popularity the last three years."

The first step was improving the site's infrastructure. Starting with an empty field, SDSU transformed the area around the stadium by plotting and marking roads, walkways, and designated tailgate spots, complete with sites for large barbecues. Close attention was paid to car and foot ingress and egress to reassure fans that getting to a parking spot and getting out after the game would be safe and not too time-consuming—a key to getting repeat customers, Mahlum says. They tried to think about all the details: Spots are even designated for disposing of hot coals from grills.

The physical plan was accompanied by an activity structure. Policies and guidelines are distributed to season ticket-holders and other fans as they arrive. They're told that the Backyard is the place for tailgating and the only spot on campus where open containers of alcoholic beverages are permitted. It was a way of acknowledging the role of a drink in many fans' pregame activities while striving to maintain university control.

"We asked ourselves, ‘What is the best way to establish a game-day environment that people will enjoy on a weekly basis?'" Mahlum says. "Having a beverage or two might be many people's way of doing it, but there's food, there's music, there's entertainment, there's social interaction.

"We publicize all this through mailings to our season ticket holders, postings on our Web site, and hand-outs distributed to folks as they come in," Mahlum continues. "We're trying to find a way that we can create an emotional attachment and provide that Jackrabbit experience everyone wants to enjoy."

WORKING WITH STUDENTS
At Yale University, administrators also are trying to promote the right experience. But in their case, the need was to break from tradition. One of Yale's most revered late-autumn traditions is the football showdown with Ivy League rival Harvard, a contest known simply as The Game. When it's in New Haven every other year, 20,000 people may remain outside the Yale Bowl itself, many of them having no intention of watching football. So when Yale administrators sought to put in place policies designed to avoid alcohol abuse in time for the 2005 version of The Game, they decided to tread lightly and get feedback from students.

They started by floating the idea to student groups of closing tailgate parties at kickoff and asked for response. "The students said, ‘You've got to be kidding,'" says Colleen Lim, Senior Associate Director of Athletics. "They said, ‘Please listen to us. It's part of our culture, especially for alums coming back. We really don't agree with you.' We explained our concerns to the students and there was good dialogue. In the end, when the final policies were announced, the students respected that the decisions were made with their safety in mind."

The new rules weren't drastic: only one rented travel trailer containing a tailgate set-up allowed per student group; no drinking-game paraphernalia; no dancing on vehicle rooftops; and tailgate parties were to stop at the end of halftime. Yale had hoped to have rules in effect early in the season, but when it was clear it would take more time to reach something of a campuswide consensus, administrators took it slowly and implemented them for only the final two home games. Before the next-to-last home game, Yale publicized its new tailgating rules online, in fliers, in alumni magazines, and through other media that reach students and alumni. The new rules were coupled with playing up the appeal of actually watching all of a potentially good game between two hard-working rivals.

The communication effort made the difference on the day of The Game, the last home game of the season, says Lim. Recognizing that the rules were reasonable and not just designed to poop a good party, tailgating students and alumni largely cooperated.

"They do fear for the safety and the welfare of their fellow students, and many of them did suggest that it was positive to have some rules," Lim says. "And they understood, for example, that dancing on top of trucks isn't safe when you're drunk. Actually, it isn't safe, period. So in many ways I think they appreciated some of the new rules because they alleviated the peer pressure to join in drinking games—students could say they didn't want to participate because they weren't allowed."

Once tailgating began, enforcement involved university and local police from the two affected municipalities along with civilian university personnel. Lim says police were careful to be cooperative and tactful. "The police were great, walking from tailgate to tailgate, being positive, and when they needed to enforce, asking tailgaters to be safe," she says. "We didn't have to make any arrests."

When it came time to shut down the tailgating at halftime, all the previous communication paid off. "We knew that realistically we couldn't clear the lots by force," Lim says. "We'd have needed every police officer in the state for that. But there was cooperation because there was so much talk with the students beforehand. The vast majority of them volunteered to go into the game."

Lim says the respectful, reasoned approach was a conscious effort to avoid incidents like those that have plagued other college campuses when police try to enforce laws against public and underage drinking. "Our intent was to make it as safe as possible," she says. "But we knew that if we tried to push and force and bully, we could create a riot. When people are drunk and not thinking, you're always walking that line. If you push it too far, you're going to create something you don't want to create. It sometimes takes just one student to challenge you, and all of a sudden there's a mob mentality. We never came close to such a scene, and I attribute that to all the prior communication."