For Chris Hodge, the most vivid color at Syracuse-area high school basketball games is police blue.
“We have uniformed police at all of our bigger contests,” said Hodge, administrator for health, physical education and athletics for all city schools.
The guards are a symbol of sports’ potential to tap into deep emotions and even violence, say athletic directors, school superintendents and experts on sports’ effects on fans.
A reminder of that potential came on Feb. 8 during a Camillus Youth Basketball Association game at West Genesee Middle School. After a hard foul, a brawl broke out as parents, coaches and players rushed the court. Eight people were charged with misdemeanors, according to Thomas Winn, the Camillus police chief.
At high schools throughout Onondaga County, Hodge and other officials say, no particular violence caused the schools to beef up security. Instead, they’re simply trying to head off the possibility, they say. They try to restrain sports-inspired, emotional outbreaks by the high-profile presence of guards, by meetings with parents and other fans on proper etiquette and — in worst case — by banning the unruly fan or athlete.
So far, said Hodge, those tactics have been working at high schools. “There have not been any real big issues because at every inner city game there is major security,” said Hodge.
But sports creates almost a perfect storm of emotions that all too easily can trigger violence, say experts on their effects on fans and athletes. “People shudder at the horror of occasional violence,” said Charles P. Korr, a sports historian and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “But we should expect more and be surprised at how little violence we get.”
In sports’ competitive atmosphere, said Korr, coaches often refer to players as “warriors.” Some encourage physical contact that stops just short of provoking a penalty by referees. “When one guy is pounding another long enough, someone’s fuse is going to break sooner or later,” said Korr.
And the stress is on winning — for athletes and fans. The word “fan,” reminds Korr and other experts, derives from the word “fanatic.” Sports mean so much to some fans that the emotional investment often leads to violent feelings and actions, said Korr.
“The other guy is never supposed to win,” said Korr. “So when they do, of course fans take it out on somebody.”
When the fans are parents, even more emotion is invested, said Korr. Sometimes parents are living out their dreams through their children. Some parents think their child must play the entire game. When things don’t work as those parents want, Korr said, sometimes the response is violence.
At Syracuse-area high schools, athletic directors and superintendents say they are only too aware of those emotional fuses in sports.
At Fayetteville-Manlius High School, parents get brochures that explain the role of coaches, athletes and spectators. Teams also hold parent meetings before the season starts to explain the expectations and appropriate behavior.
Security is on hand at each contest. The larger the event, the more security, said Richard Roy, athletic director. “One person cannot deal with 2,000 people at a football game,” Roy said. “For that we have police officers and staff spread out.”
For football games, the school usually fields three or four officers, said Roy. The cost of bringing in police or sheriffs to monitor the crowd and the athletes is part of the athletic budget. Security for one football season, Roy estimates, is about $1,200. For boys’ basketball games, he said, the cost is about $700 for the season.
The investment, said Roy, pays off. This past winter, for example, during a basketball game against Cicero-North Syracuse High School, kids from each school exchanged words. Before the words could escalate to blows, a police officer stepped in.
The students might not have calmed down so much if the intervention had come from an plain-clothes school staff member, suggested Roy. “The kid doesn’t know him from a bag of doorknobs,” said Roy. “But the kid knew the uniform. So he stopped.”
At West Genesee High School, the tactics are similar, said superintendent Christopher Brown.
During mandatory pre-season meetings with parents of athletes, Brown brings in referees to explain what a foul looks like. That helps give parents a better sense of how games are played and called by referees. At hockey games, the contests also have five or six paid chaperones and two or three police officers. Chaperones get paid $25 an hour. Police officers come to the sporting events for part of their shift, Brown said, and do not get paid by the school.
He started noticing a change in fan and player behavior about five years ago, Brown recalled. “People got more aggressive and less respectful,” he said. Once, he said, “I had a parent rush the volleyball coach when his child wasn’t playing.” He added, “We had people there to get in the middle of it.”
As a result of the precautions, Brown said, sports hasn’t erupted into violence at his schools. “We just have a parent removed if they yell at an official or if an athlete is violent,” Brown said. “It is all about being proactive.”
For his part, Chris Hodge, the city athletics administrator, does not foresee a time without blue uniforms. “Back in the day it was enough to just have some teachers at games,” Hodge said. “Now we need uniformed police. I don’t think there is a district that doesn’t have that.”
(Rachel Stern is a graduate student in magazine, newspaper and online journalism.)
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