This weekend's activities celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Ohio State-Michigan football rivalry showcase a long, rich tradition of which fans in both states can be justly proud. Still, you only have to look back one year to note another "tradition" most fans would rather forget.
On Nov. 23, 2002, after Ohio State beat Michigan, 14-9, locations on and off campus in Columbus were rocked by riots. Drunken revelers set more than 100 street fires, destroyed cars, damaged homes and threw rocks at firefighters.
This was just one incident during an awful month that saw violence break out across the nation seemingly wherever a high-stakes college football game was being played: Washington-Washington State, North Carolina State-Florida State, Clemson-South Carolina, West Virginia-Virginia Tech, Miami-Marshall - even the University of Cincinnati's game at Hawaii.
Clearly, the Big Game can bring big problems.
OSU President Karen Holbrook took a tough stance and made it stick. City authorities pressed felony charges wherever possible. A number of campuses modified their policies, even rethinking the use of breakaway goalposts, and warned there would be lessened tolerance for post-game fan antics. The Big Ten has aired TV ads this fall featuring the conference's football coaches discussing the importance of good fan behavior.
It will take all that and more. This nonsense has been going on for years, and it hasn't stopped this season: In September, a University of Toledo student suffered critical head injuries when she was struck by a goal post lofted by fans celebrating Toledo's upset of Pittsburgh. The university has since announced it will arrest fans who rush the field after a game. Good. Campus and civil authorities must keep sending out the strong message that fan violence cannot be tolerated.
This week, the U.S. Justice Department's Community Relations Service is conducting a national conference in Columbus on the problem of "celebratory riots" at sports events. Co-sponsored by OSU and the University of Minnesota, it is examining how law enforcement agencies plan for and deal with such violence, a task DOJ officials say has become more complicated in the post-Sept. 11 era.
The trick is to forestall violence without dampening the spirit of big-time college sports. Sometimes there's a fine line here. The OSU campus has been holding "Beat Michigan Week 2003" events leading up to the game, with pep rallies and a student tug-of-war tonight, to get its fans fired up. There's nothing wrong with that - sports rah-rah is an integral and cherished part of the college experience.
But rioting is not. Looting, drunken vandalism, setting fires and maiming innocent bystanders have nothing to do with any legitimate tradition - academic, athletic or otherwise. It has to stop.
