President's Committee on Sportsmanship
August 21, 2001, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 noon
Meeting Notes

Mike Norris, Hayden Bluth, and Delaney Riehl, three undergraduate students, presented their perspectives on the Committee's work and made several recommendations. Their remarks are appended below. In response to a question about what the students would suggest for a positive definition of sportsmanship, they responded that sportsmanship has to do with "class," respecting one's opponents, teammates, referees, coaches, and the other team's fans, and respecting the game itself. The students also mentioned that they believe gamesmanship, which includes taunting and chanting at the other team, does not preclude sportsmanship anymore than coaches screaming at officials or players taunting one another does. Though such gamesmanship exists during the game, the students indicated they still respect the game, the other team, and the University of Maryland. The Committee members probed the students' remarks to make sure their position was fully understood.

Linda Clement reported that she, Ken Krouse, Paul Dillon, Holly Ponzillo and Richard Conti attended a meeting on campus disturbances held at the Ohio State University on August 7, 2001. She distributed the "Summary Notes" (attached) from that meeting and indicated that several common themes emerged, including safety, security and civility.

Tom Mickle, Associate Commissioner for the Atlantic Coast Conference, then addressed the committee. He said that sportsmanship has been a major issue in the Conference for the last six to seven years. The Chief Executive Officers of the member schools brought the issue to the Conference's attention in the mid-1990s. At that time, the major concern was behavior by coaches and players. The ACC has a sportsmanship code and the CEOs asked that the Conference enforce it. Each year, the coaches are asked to review the sportsmanship code with their student athletes and to sign a form indicating they have done so. The ACC has also started using a survey form to gather feedback from coaches, operations managers, and game officials. If a consistent problem emerges at one of the ACC schools, the Commissioner meets with the athletic director and the faculty representative. The CEOs are notified if such meetings take place.

In recent surveys, behavior by coaches and student athletes has been very good. The ACC has dedicated public service announcements on their broadcasts to sportsmanship. All football and basketball coaches have participated in the announcements. These have been well received by the general public.

Another thing the ACC has implemented is to send out incident reports to schools and officials immediately after any incidents are reported. The appropriate ACC sports administrator also contacts the institution involved so that immediate action can be taken.

The Commissioner has the authority to enforce penalties for unsportsmanslike behavior, including suspending and/or reprimanding coaches and student athletes. In addition, the ACC has very strict rules about criticizing officials.

An ad hoc committee has recently been formed to study sportsmanship, especially as it relates to fan behavior. The committee of nine includes members of each ACC school. They have come up with ten draft recommendations that will be presented at the ACC's fall conference.

A general committee discussion followed. It was suggested that perhaps the committee needs to distinguish between "sportsmanship" and "fansmanship." The idea was also expressed that rude fan behavior does not help good teams win championships; this goes back to having a lot of respect and integrity as an institution and being a "class act." It was also suggested that the committee hear from several student athletes and coaches to hear their views on fan behavior.

A suggested Committee meeting schedule for the fall was distributed and will be confirmed in the near future.

---

Recommendations to the Sportsmanship Committee

Presented by Mike Norris, Hayden Bluth, and Delaney Riehl

At this committee's first meeting, Dr. Mote indicated that, "We have great pride in our athletic teams and we should have fun and celebrate their achievements."

We couldn't agree more. As students we all take great pride in the success of this great institution, especially with respect to athletics when our success is exhibited on a national scale and our recognition as an institution is enhanced beyond what we experience with other achievements. Athletic success is especially enjoyed by the student body, because it gives us the opportunity to share the exhilaration of victory and the pain of defeat vicariously through our fellow students. Unlike professional sports, we identify with student athletes, because of our close connection to them - we live in the same dorms, eat the same meals, and take the same classes. As Coach Gary Williams described to The Diamondback following last year's victory over Duke, "That's the way it should be. College students should get excited about a game like that...when you take it right down to the core of the situation, it's our school versus their school [Duke]; it's our student body versus their student body."

However, our pride in the University of Maryland does not end with our graduation. Although we are often thought of as transitory, because we are only students for a few years, our connection with our school will never be broken.

When we apply for graduate schools or employment, our success is inextricably tied with the past and present success of our school.

As future alumni and contributors to the University of Maryland, we will continue to support our school well into the future, just as the current alumni currently do.

Most importantly, the great experiences we have while students, many of which revolve around athletic traditions, will always represent fond memories for us.

Because of our love for Maryland and our traditions, many of us refused to accept the regulations imposed upon the 24,000-member student body last spring.

Section Q, Rows 1-10

For as long as most of us can remember, Maryland students have had seats directly behind the opposing team's bench. Such positioning allows us to not only cheer on our team with great vigor, but also to distract the opposing team, and therefore, increase our own team's advantage. Such seating priority is indispensable when many of our competitors, both within the Atlantic Coast Conference and outside of it, allow their students to enjoy the same advantage.

At tip-off of the men's basketball team's nationally televised January 27 game against the Duke Blue Devils, no one in the capacity crowd would have thought that a plastic water bottle would steal the spot light from the play on the court. While no one condones the actions of the 100 students that night that threw objects that night (roughly 2.2% of the student section), the seat displacement was unnecessary not only because the regulation was not the impetus behind the students' compliance with the no-throwing policy, but also because the situation could have been avoided in the first place. If the arena employees would have removed the cap, as they now do, this incident would have been avoided. The bottle cap is removed to prevent fans from turning the bottles into dangerous flying objects, which is what happened here.

Post-Game Celebrations

One of our most exciting and new athletic traditions the last couple of years has been our post-game celebrations following important and surprise victories for our basketball team. The surge of pride and excitement that we feel when we run through the campus, onto Route One, and chant and sing around bonfires on fraternity row represents a comradeship that unfortunately does not present itself on our campus very often. While we students are different ethnically, economically and geographically, the deep sense of school spirit that we feel after great victories brings us all together as Terrapins. While we can all agree that stealing others' property and burning public property is wrong ad should not be tolerated, the solution should never be to try to stop our great and growing tradition. We should work together to reach a reasonable understanding that celebrations such as the ones following out last two victories at Cameron Indoor Stadium are tolerated, but contained, while dangerous and violent displays of destruction and theft are not.

Rock and Roll, Part II

Nearly six years ago student fans began augmenting their own lyrics to the thirty-year-old sports anthem, "Rock and Roll, Part II." Within one year, the tune combined with the lyrics that became the song grew into the most popular of student chants. Not only did students enjoy their song because they created it themselves, but also because the timing in which it was sung could not be more appropriate - before tip-off and during a run at basketball games, and after the extra point following touchdowns at football games.

Peer Institutions:

The current administration relies heavily upon the practices and policies of our peer institutions when making policies for our university. Certainly, this committee is no exception as President Mote charged all of you to consider other universities in crafting a vision statement for sportsmanship and evaluating the regulations imposed this spring. We encourage all of you to examine some of the practices that other universities have sponsored or condoned enclosed in this packet. They range from arguably ethnically-insensitive mascots, "tomahawk chops," personally-insulting chants. Relatively speaking, the students' "you suck" lyrics are not offensive when interpreted in their proper context and should not justify banning one of the world's most popular sports anthems while our competitors are allowed to intimidate with much more offensive chants.

Bad Sportsmanship:

Many argue that our lyrics are un-sportsmanlike, and therefore, the tune should be banned. But where as an institution do we draw the line on regulations geared at stopping unfriendly chants? If we are so intent on eliminating the lyrics to RRII, why not the "Airball" chant? Why not the "Overrated" chant? Why do we allow students to hold up newspapers during the opposing team's introductions? We do not confiscate newspapers as students enter Cole Field House, despite the fact that the purpose for which we use them is rude. We do not play music over the PA system to try to drown out chants like "Overrated" during timeouts like we did briefly last year when students sung our rendition of Rock and Roll, II on our own. None of these examples cheer on our team; rather, each of them antagonizes the other team. Why as an institution do we take measures to eliminate a non-profane word like "suck" that has worked its way into the language and various forms of media, while we condone other chants that have also been accepted at sporting events?

History:

Anyone that has followed this issue closely over the last couple of years understands that a segment of the alumni and our university president abhor our version of Rock and Roll, II. Dr. Mote asked the university senate to quell the "insensitivity demon" (which is how he described the "you suck" jeers at Cole Field House) in his 2000 State of the Campus Address after two years of working with the athletic department to selectively censor the song's playing at football games. As the paper, "A Vision of Youth Sport in the New Millennium" that you all received at the last meeting states, "People tend to pay attention during times of crisis, so leaders could view crises or problem situations as opportunities to promote key values by the way they deal with the situation." For students that were only notified of the administration and athletic department's unilateral ban on Rock and Roll, II by a Diamondback ad, the action demonstrated that the administration sought out an opportunity to appease certain alumni and its own personal predilections at the expense of the students.

Recommendations

All rows of Section Q be returned to the students for the final season at Cole and that no changes are made to student seating in the Comcast Center. The students demonstrated remarkable compliance with the no-throwing policy after the sanctions were put in place, both at Cole Field House and in Minneapolis; therefore, the reseating policy is unnecessary.

The administration, city, and students work together to reach an understanding on post-game activities, and that the administration clearly outlines to the students what and where celebrating will be tolerated on campus and in College Park. We feel that the celebrations that occurred after the last two victories over Duke and the victory over Stanford were well contained and the start of an invigorating tradition that should remain a part of our campus experience.

The temporary ban on Rock and Roll, II that was imposed this February should be immediately lifted in time for the start of the upcoming football season. Even if a claim can be made that the incident at Cole last spring was induced by Rock and Roll, II, whether directly or indirectly, there was no such incident at Byrd stadium that can justify imposing the ban on football fans before the committee makes its final recommendations and the distance between student fans and the opposing team's fans is far too great to warrant concern. To impose the same ban at Byrd as what is in place at Cole would undermine this committee and its work.

Rock and Roll, II must be restored to the Maryland band's repertoire at Maryland athletic events. The lyrics are not profane when properly interpreted, are common among fans at our peer institutions, and represent a popular tradition that allows our fans to compete with other school's home court advantages.

---

SUMMARY NOTES - OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MEETING ON CAMPUS DISTURBANCES -
August 7, 2001 Prepared by Linda M. Clement (8/20/01)

Attendees from the University of Maryland and the City of College Park: Linda Clement, Ken Krouse, Paul Dillon, Holly Ponzillo, Richard Conti.

Institutions in Attendance: Ohio State University, University of Ohio, University of Maryland College Park, Pennsylvania State University, Michigan State University, Purdue, Duke University, University of New Hampshire, the University of Northern Colorado.

Ohio State University

Nature of the disturbance: off campus, large-scale parties during weekends, excessive drinking, destruction of property, some personal injuries.

Attempts to change: "Party Smart," a student group that helped educate students in how to party responsibly, beautification of the area to engender a sense of pride in the neighborhoods adjacent to campuses, concentration of city police in that area (note: strict police enforcement is not a long-term answer because of expense and the danger of leaving the rest of the city vulnerable), making students who host parties accountable through the campus judicial process (fines - $500 for first-time offense, $1,000 for second offense, possible eviction for a third offense), having a large staff presence to cut back on the animosity factor of students.

University of Ohio

Nature of the disturbance: celebration of the first day of Spring, just off campus on the main street; police in riot gear cleared the streets, 24 arrests, 17 students suspended for a period of time.

Attempts to change: have a smaller police presence so students don't feel like they have an authority to challenge, strong educational campaign discouraging attendance with the theme "you can get in trouble if you attend this event," staff in green jackets with flashlights for extra security, having the Student Code of Conduct apply to off-campus areas.

University of New Hampshire

Nature of disturbance: "Spring Fling," party in April, underage drinking, disorderly conduct, 167 arrests - 60% non-students.

Attempts to change: citizen complaint policy, DWI checkpoint in the area, video-taping the event - using the WEB to identify misbehavior, staff present clearly identified in colorful windbreakers, full custody arrests.

Duke University

Nature of the disturbance: bonfires after major athletic events.

Attempts to change: police took a lead role, staff worked with students to create a "foam party" (very unsuccessful - with students having a protest bonfire three days later), sanction six bonfires, with "Team" of staff present to ensure a safe celebration, police on the periphery, people have to stay 10 feet away from the first, nothing added to the first after 1:00 a.m.

Michigan State University

Nature of the disturbance: "Cedar Fest," a Spring celebration adjacent to campus, basketball loss to Duke in the NCAA - 10,000 assembled, massive disturbance with disorderly conduct, 120 arrests.

Attempts to change: focus group activities to get a sense of the reasons for the behavior, encourage discussion about civility in classes and residence hall meetings, city police working with campus police - high visibility and educational campaign with the theme "Spartans Act with Class," work with landlords to send messages about civility and citizenship, decreased organized weekend activities.

Purdue

Nature of the disturbance: loss in women's basketball to Notre Dame, flurry of fires, destruction of property, 200 police officers called in, used tear gas to clear the area, used a professional video, pictures of students on the WEB site, three students self-identified and were prosecuted for felonies and misdemeanors, $5,000 reward for identification leading to a conviction.

Attempts to change: immediate judicial response with nine expulsions and five suspensions, educational campaign with a theme "Champions Make Choices and Choices Make Champions," Judicial Office met with the students quoted in the newspaper.

Pennsylvania State University

Nature of the disturbance: loss in NCAA basketball tournament, 4,000 participants, mostly students; summer arts festival, 1,500 participants, 21 arrests, $150,000 damage, event in the "Canyon" area of campus, underage drinking and disorderly conduct, had to be broken up by police using pepper spray.

Attempts to change: high-power lighting installed, video camera filming the street, commitment to zero tolerance of misbehavior, with consequences clearly stated, applying the Student Code of Conduct to off-campus behavior, more alternative programming Thursday-Sunday, extended late-night programming from 2:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m., utilized staff and students as "peacemakers" clearly identified circulating in the crowd, application of the Student Code of Conduct off campus, with selective parental notification.

University of Northern Colorado

Nature of the disturbance: Denver Broncos in the super bowl, spontaneous bonfires in the streets around campus, destruction of property; April 2001 block party just off campus, keg party, 500 people, drunken, disorderly behavior, one large bonfire, police in riot gear dismissed the crowd, 32 arrests - 29 students, 80% freshmen, one expulsion, 13 suspensions.

Attempts to change: educational campaign with theme "There's no such thing as an innocent bystander," creation of "party patrols" on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays to give warnings to partiers, city police locating a substation in the area.