Underage Drinking
This article is about the new implications at the University of Minnesota in their efforts to curb binge drinking by the students. This topic of binge and under age drinking among college students has been a hot topic in our class and this article fits in nicely and outlines the way in which this university, among others, is making efforts to prevent this dangerous practice. This program, modeled after the University of Wisconsin’s Check BAC (said check back, the BAC stands for blood alcohol content) allows student season-ticket holders who are kicked out of a game for being too drunk to go to future games by submitting to blood alcohol testing. Students under 21 must be alcohol-free; those 21 or older cannot exceed a BAC of 0.08. The alcohol limits are the same as the ones for driving. This program is definitely a step in the right direction; rather than forbidding these students the right to go to games, they give them another chance which will hopefully teach them to be more responsible in the future. This system is however not fool-proof. With all the students that go to the games at such a big school as the University of Wisconsin, there is no possible way to catch every under age or out of control drinker in the crowd. The TCF stadium in which the Gopher’s play seats 50, 700 people and 10, 000 of those are student tickets. If a student fails the breathalyzer test after their first offense then the student gets their season tickets taken away. Only three Minnesota students have violated the system another time. Wisconsin’s version of this program is named the Show and Blow program. Perhaps this program would be a better option for sports game related offenses than the BASICs program offered on campus. At least in this case the University can be sure that there won’t be returning offenders on the same violation, and could perhaps monitor binge drinking by underages students more closely. Our school’s football program is not nearly as big of an attraction as those at the University of Wisconsin or the University of Minnesota, or at the University of Texas where a 2007 study came out saying that more students drank on a game day than New Years Eve and Halloween or the last day of fall semester classes. This article then goes on to say that the University of Minnesota is very worried about underage drinking, and in the next sentence mention the property damage in excess of $150,000 after their 2003 NCAA men’s hockey championship. Though the author may not have intended it to sound this way, the worry of the administration about underage drinking is negated by the fact that property damage was mentioned next, this makes it seem like all the University cares about is their property and not the welfare of their students.
