In regards to Ossie Bladine’s column (“The war against an American Tradition,” ODE, Mar. 1), I agree with the position that placing a ban on alcohol at tailgate areas won’t solve anything. Fans will continue to drink at their pre-game tailgates, yet the new game that everyone will be playing is “Don’t get caught.” University students, especially freshmen and the underage, are already good at this game. All such a ban would do is isolate the older fans and alumni who are much more responsible with their alcohol consumption than rowdy college students. After all, it isn’t the older generation, the “alumni demographic,” who are getting out of hand; it is the “university-student demographic” that incites a majority of the reported incidents of drunken or rowdy fan behavior.
That being said, I think there is a real problem with drinking in our society nowadays. As a former Designated Driving Shuttle employee, I can say that I am a little too familiar with drunken student behavior, and I can honestly say that drunken students are incredibly annoying and often unnecessarily rude. If Americans (especially young, college-aged citizens) were more responsible with their drinking habits, then there probably wouldn’t even be a need for such a proposal as the one that the Eugene City Council has put forth. So far, students are the primary cause of the City Council’s proposal, as made evident by last season’s “Classy fan behavior” campaign, after a record setting season for reported DPS student-fan ejections (which also occurred in conjunction with a record high on-campus, University-student liquor and drug offenses). Simply put, students need to either drink less or not at all when going to athletic games. It is still possible to have a good time without drinking excessively. It’s time for students to remember why going to football games is fun and exciting in the first place
Adam Betz
Eugene resident