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9/8/2003
Minnesota Daily photographer Andrew Thomas, a junior, recalls arriving in Dinkytown at about 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 12, as time wound down on the Gopher men's hockey team's second consecutive NCAA championship. "We were all on call, just in case something happened," Thomas recalls. "For the most part, we figured people learned their lesson from the year before." Shortly after 9 p.m., people started to pour onto the streets, giving each other high-fives and filling the air with the sound of spirited hooting. "The crowd was getting bigger and bigger and they were starting to block traffic. It was all pretty innocent," Thomas says. Then someone started a bonfire at the intersection of Fourth Street and 14th Avenue, near where Thomas was stationed outside the Purple Onion cafe. "Until the fire started, they weren't doing any damage. Before that, it was very civil," he says. "The whole night was very scary in that you didn't know where things were going to lead. You couldn't believe your eyes." Eventually, thousands of people gathered in Dinkytown: shouting, chanting, and whooping. As the night wore on, the assembly turned violent. Cars were overturned and set ablaze. Dumpster fires raged. A parking booth was torched. Rioters clashed with police who fired pepper spray to disperse the unruly crowd. Much of the mayhem aired live on the local 10 o'clock news and some television stations broke into regular programming for live updates. TV cameras captured the scene of several young men standing atop an overturned car chanting, "Let's go, Gophers!" The April riot marked a repeat performance of April 2002, when the Gophers won the same title and rioting ensued in Dinkytown. The riots left the University community with a black eye and outraged administrators, students, and the public. But the University of Minnesota is hardly alone in dealing with the issue of out-of-control, seemingly inexplicable violence tied to sporting events. And it is not alone in searching for elusive answers to arrest this growing phenomenon. A recent report by Ohio State University, which itself has been plagued by sports-related riots, including one in November after a football victory over rival Michigan, identified 19 major universities that reported at least one riot in recent years. Although "celebratory riots," as they are sometimes called, following professional sporting championships have occurred sporadically in the United States for at least 20 years, it is on and near college campuses where the disturbances are growing more commonplace. In 2001, students at the University of Maryland in College Park set more than 60 fires and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage in the wake of that school's Final Four basketball loss to Duke. Penn State has weathered several riots, some of which have sprung not from sports, but from the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. At Purdue, students have rioted in response to the fortunes of the women's basketball team. In 1999, when the Boilermakers won the NCAA title, students rioted. When the team lost the title in 2001, students rioted anew. University of Minnesota officials estimate the damage from this year's riots at $150,000. As of midsummer, eight people had been charged in connection with riot violence. The University charged 12 students with disciplinary violations and expelled one student. Several months after the riots, the University of Minnesota Police Web site still featured numerous riot photos, with a plea for tips to help identify still-unknown participants. In June, the University's Board of Regents adopted a new, tougher policy outlining stronger disciplinary authority against students who participate in or encourage a riot, even those occurring off-campus if they involve University events. University President Robert Bruininks believes that the new policy is a step in the right direction. "I don't accept the notion that these kinds of obnoxious behaviors are the right of people when combined with some good outcome like a national championship," says Bruininks. "I hope we get this behind us and move on. My faith in our students and my confidence in their leadership has frankly been deepened in working with them through this experience." But despite the swift consequences for some students and the adoption of new policies and strategies, President Bruininks acknowledges, "I can't guarantee that something like this won't occur in the future." * Minnesota Daily reporter Paul Sand, a senior, recalls the dance between the police and the crowd. "They would push the crowd a block and then the kids would rip down all the signs and start another fire," says Sand, who watched the process repeat itself several times. "If you were going to ask me the psychology of a riot, I'm not sure I have an answer for you. I've never seen anything like this. It's just this mob mentality and this escalation of thick-headedness." Sociologists have been studying the phenomenon of sports-related
"Overwhelmingly, these rioters are young, white, male," says Lewis, who suggests that rioters may actually view their destructive acts as "feats of skill," which they see as extensions of or tributes to their college athletic models. "They can't do the skill that the hockey players do on the ice, so their celebrating riots become a feat of skill—throwing bottles or tipping over cars. They also look to other fans who are observing for approval," posits Lewis. "What I call the 'cheerleaders' and the spectators are providing support, creating an arena around it." Lewis acknowledges the role of alcohol in the riots, but says that it isn't the root cause of the unrest: "They're not falling down drunk," Lewis says of the average riot participant. "They've had a few beers, which gives them permission to do what they want to do anyway." Dr. Ed Ehlinger, director of the University's Boynton Health Service, has headed a committee studying the role of alcohol in the riots. He agrees that alcohol may play only a minor role in rioting. "I think if there had not been alcohol around, there probably still would have been a riot," says Ehlinger, who is quick to note that alcohol probably increased the magnitude of the event. "It lowers your inhibitions. That's why alcohol is a problem in any kind of violent behaviors: It impairs judgment." Professor Merrill Melnick, a sports sociologist at State University of New York-Brockport, says that there are no easy, pat answers, but he does have theories, starting with a possible biological explanation. "When males are directly or vicariously successful they experience a testosterone surge, what we call a 'T-surge,'" says Melnick, who notes that a T-surge can be connected with increased aggressiveness. The mix gets more volatile with the addition of alcohol. "These are the kinds of things that might provide fuel for a sports outburst of some sort," he says. Lewis was a witness to the shootings at Kent State in 1970, an experience that prompted him to become a student of crowds and violence. Lewis notes that sports riots tend to be short-lived and marked by petty vandalism, but he fears more serious repercussions. "My worry, coming from Kent State, is that the police will overreact and we'll have another Kent State. Can you imagine losing your life over a sports riot?" says Lewis. University of Minnesota Police Chief George Aylward eschews heavy-handed tactics, saying that a calmer approach helps contain a crowd and minimize violence. He also argues that in some respects the riots of 2003 were not as bad as those in 2002. "I think that the folks were less violent toward the police and it ended much earlier," he says. "If somebody hadn't introduced the element of arson, it wouldn't have been as bad as the year before." Aylward has already run planning sessions with Minneapolis police leaders to try to keep the future disturbances "under control before they develop." Aylward does agree that the rioting trend is growing and must be broken. "It's a nationwide problem. It's scary in that if it becomes entrenched in the college undergraduate culture, we're going to have a heck of a time finding a remedy for it," says Aylward. "When we spoke to the kids who were actually arrested for crimes, they were really sort of stumped. They didn't know why they did it. They just didn't know why they did it." The role of the media in these riots is debated. While no one holds news organizations responsible for the riots, some have argued that media portrayals might help create the expectation for rioting. University junior Eric Dyer watched the hockey game on television and felt the media did just that. "One of the worst things was that at six o'clock there were a bunch of reporters camped out in Dinkytown," says Dyer. "The media's already there camped out, I don't think that had a positive impact on what happened. They were anticipating a riot." * Kent State's Lewis says that until recently the attitude of the college athletic establishment toward such incidents has been too casual. "Finally, the NCAA is beginning to take it seriously." The NCAA helped convene 100 experts in various fields for a sportsmanship summit in February. A comprehensive report out of that summit is forthcoming. The matter was widely discussed at Big Ten meetings this summer and, among other steps, conference coaches agreed to film public service announcements encouraging respectful behavior. Still, Lewis does not see any evidence of solutions on the immediate horizon. "The sarcastic answer is eliminate championships and you'll probably eliminate fan violence," he says. "I'm very pessimistic
As University of Minnesota officials grapple with ways to discourage, defuse, and deter future riots, they are looking to their colleagues around the country who have more experience with student rioting. David Andrews, Ohio State's dean of the College of Human Ecology, serves as chair of Ohio State's Task Force on Preventing Celebratory Riots. In its research, the task force made some troubling discoveries. "We have freshmen that will say one of the things that they're looking forward to is their first riot," says Andrews. "Most of them don't want to participate, they just want to see one. The onlookers are as big a part of the problem as anything else. It creates this condition where you can be anonymous." The OSU task force issued a detailed, 39-page report in April. One of its key recommendations was to "Instill pride and enhance the positive engagement of students in both their university and their community." But doing that is clearly an uphill battle. The report also noted "Student comments frequently invoke the idea of riots now being a 'tradition' at Ohio State." At the February sportsmanship summit, for example, Ohio State president Karen Holbrook said that before the Michigan game she urged students to "think, use moderation, and show respect." Her office was flooded with e-mails criticizing the suggestion. "They thought I was attacking or trying to take away the very essence of Ohio State football," she said. Students are clearly part of the solution to these riots. The Ohio State report noted that almost 90 percent of students feel the riotous behavior is embarrassing to the institution, and more than 70 percent believe stopping the behavior is the responsibility of students (see story below). At the University of Minnesota, student leaders, faculty, and administrators will repeatedly tell incoming students about the new student conduct policy and about expectations for respectful behavior. The University is taking a multi-pronged approach to the problem this year, as well as collaborating with schools around the country. University officials and a student delegation are slated to participate in a September student summit at the University of New Hampshire promoting responsible, alternative ways to celebrate. The University is co-hosting a conference at Ohio State in November on student conduct and riots. The University is also among 14 schools that have agreed to compile and analyze riot data for a Michigan State research project; participants will convene in February 2004. Meanwhile, the University is creating the position of Student Community Coordinator, designed to help strengthen the connection between University students and the surrounding neighborhoods. "It's not just about a particular incident," says Bruininks. "We also have to be good neighbors and assure that our students are good neighbors." June Nobbe, interim associate vice provost for Student Affairs, says that school administrators can't simply create new policies and hand down virtual stone tablets to students. "The theme that came out of [the Ohio State report] is we absolutely have to be engaging our students," says Nobbe. "The administration can't do this in isolation without student involvement." Even so, Nobbe acknowledges, "The campuses like Ohio State that have struggled with these issues for a long time are still struggling." As the University rolls out a get-tough policy, hires a community coordinator, refines law-enforcement tactics, and works with other institutions to find more solutions, engaging students in stopping these disturbances is clearly key. Although the huge majority of students abhors the destruction, an element evidently seems to relish it. In the Minnesota Daily the Monday following the riot, one student was quoted as saying he participated because he wanted to outdo last year's riot. Another said the experience was one of the most memorable of his college career. A day later, some students were introspective and regretful about their roles, even as passive witnesses, while others complained bitterly about being singled out and arrested when so many others were not. At least two people who tried to intervene to prevent cars being overturned were assaulted. Photographer Andrew Thomas of the Daily says that—immediately in the wake of this spring's riot—he heard some disturbing talk among fellow students. "Monday morning I had class at 9 a.m., and I heard people talking about it," says Thomas. "I overheard a number of people in class [say] that they were looking forward to next year's riots." This article copyright 2003 by Burl Gilyard, who retains ownership and copyright of the article. No reproduction or redistribution of this article is permitted without permission from the copyright holder. Burl Gilyard (B.A. '92 ) is a Minneapolis freelance writer. | |||||||||||||||||||
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