By Dennis O’Neil

In August of 2005, the NCAA Executive Board put forward a suggestion for member colleges and universities to stop selling alcohol at athletic events. Despite this suggestion, the University of Louisville has continued to sell alcohol at regular season athletic events held in Freedom Hall, Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium and Patterson Stadium.

According to U of L Athletic Director Tom Jurich, the contracts the university has with various vendors and advertisers make the abolition of alcohol sales simply unfeasible.

“A lot of our facilities were built through sponsorship with certain companies, such as Budweiser through Freedom Hall,” Jurich said. “We have to conform to what is in our contract with them. Alcohol sales are part of that.”

Jurich also said the university’s attitude is largely reflective of those held by most other Big East schools, naming St. Johns, Villanova, Seton Hall, and Providence Universities as schools that also sell alcohol at their sporting events. Jurich said the university will stay with the standards of the conference.

“We consider everything that the NCAA asks us to look at,” Jurich said, “but our conference has told us we are welcome to sell alcohol, and right now that is where we are at.”

The NCAA suggestion also reads that universities should “encourage fans to drink responsibly and legally outside stadiums or arenas.” Some in the student body agreed with this sentiment.

“I really don’t think hard liquor has much of a home at college sporting events,” Jon Cecil, a senior marketing major and president of the L-Raisers, said. “But I do think beer is okay as long as it is being drank in a responsible way by patrons.”

“Educating students about drinking safely is an area where the university can always do more,” senior sports administration and exercise science major Zach Brooks said, “But I think the university does a good job of this already, when you look at the seminars that are offered and the way alcohol is addressed at freshman orientation.”

Associate Athletic Director for Media Relations Kenny Klein said the university doesn’t have a set policy for selling alcohol at all athletic events, but does have rules established for selling it at certain events. At football, basketball and baseball home games, patrons are required to show their ID and, in the case of football and basketball, no alcohol is sold after the start of the second half.

According to Klein, sales clerks for Centerplate, the university’s concessionaire, are told not to sell alcohol to any patron showing signs of inebriation. In addition, Centerplate uses undercover police officers to monitor underage pass offs and underage drinking. Klein said Alcohol and Beverage Control has officers patrolling athletic events as well.

“We have a very well managed situation at all of our events,” Klein said. “The schools that don’t sell alcohol are the schools that are having a lot of issues with it. There are many things in place that help us regulate alcohol and control the situation.”

Jurich and Klein also said that alcohol sale is mainly restricted to beer at athletic events, with the only exceptions being a few booths at Freedom Hall and the university club at Papa Johns being the only places that sell hard alcohol. Jurich also said that, in his professional experience, prohibiting alcohol sales can cause more problems than allowing it.

“When I was at Colorado State, I heard about a period in the eighties where the university didn’t allow beer sales,” Jurich said. “That was when they had a lot of problems over alcohol because they had to worry about the types of things people were smuggling in.”

Jurich said the university is happy to consider the NCAA’s input, but under the current circumstances, any significant change in alcohol sales is hard to imagine.

“We examine everything the NCAA puts out and weigh it at both ends, but really it is a ‘to each his own’ situation,” Jurich said. “If there were a rule enacted about alcohol sales, then things would be different.”