University of Colorado, part 4
Let us now move up to last Saturday's football game with Nebraska. As everyone could see for themselves on this nationally televised game, the student fans are completely out of control.Students began throwing objects onto the field. As far as I could tell from the TV coverage no university official ever made a PA announcement. Security was shifted and after they decided they could not control it, security cleared the section. This took more than 15 minutes. It should have taken 5. Arrests should have been made, people should have been expelled from school. As far as I can tell, none of this happened.
I have checked the Denver Post several times. So far, I have seen the incident mentioned twice. It was stated that the student section was cleared in a straight sports news piece about the game. The reporter apparently interviewed the AD at the school. He asked if the coach would be fired. He didn't ask what, if anything, was going to be done to control the students. One columnist did an article basically saying that the school had better fix this because it is giving the school a bad reputation. This is a good thing, but go back and count how many columnists jumped in on the recruiting "scandal". Pick a pretty missing girl half way around the world and make a comparative count.
The football recruiting wasn't a scandal. This is. There is a chronic and long lived problem with unacceptable behavior by the student fans. It is a disgrace for the university. And it is NOT a handful of students as suggested by the national TV color commentators on Saturday. It is certainly not the entire student body, but it is a large number of students. The students present who don't participate in the bad behavior also never seem to do anything to prevent or stop it.
If the senior staff of the university cannot put a quick and decisive halt to this they should be replaced by someone who can and will, starting at the top. They are not ruining the reputation of the school, it is in ruins now. The farther it is allowed to crumble the harder it will be to rebuild.
I would love to root for the local school's teams but I can not and do not. I would love to support them by buying tickets. I can not and will not. I do not think I am alone. CU football tickets are still hard to get, but it is already getting easier. That trend will continue if this problem is not fixed.
Much more importantly, more and more parents will make the decision that some of my neighbors already have. "Son, you can go to any CO college you can manage to get into except CU Boulder." It is happening already in small numbers. Trends can be dangerous things, and Ward Churchill is the one of the least of the serious problems at CU.
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