Loss for team and for community

Only six days after 34 people were issued written arrests by the police for underage drinking at Florida Atlantic University's first home football game, alcoholic beverages were banned from the parking lot of Lockhart Stadium on Wednesday during what could be argued as the biggest home game for FAU football this season.

The team played against the pre-season pick to finish first in the conference, University of Louisiana-Lafayette, and the game was live on ESPN 2.

Fans, whether they were of legal drinking age or not, were given a white piece of paper as they paid their parking fee that told tailgaters there was no alcohol allowed or people would be arrested.

Students actually started to pull out of the parking lot and never come back to see the game since they couldn't drink.

No explanation from Lockhart parking attendants were given other than "I'm sorry."

For more information on this story, read Ted Hutton's piece on the Sun-Sentinel's website.

MY TAKE:
As a member of the football game operations crew, I can attest to the fact that FAU had no part in this. Lockhart Stadium was probably hiding this from everyone because they didn't want people to freak out about it.

Alumni was still allowed to tailgate. Why? I don't know. President Brogan was visibly upset about it too. Through a conversation with him, I learned that Brogan will be making phone calls this week to see what can be done for the remaining games at Lockhart which are on Oct. 28 and Nov. 11.

There are also talks to allow of-age students to drink inside the Alumni tailgate and make the Alumni tailgate much larger.

Tailgating is usually more fun than the game itself - especially at a school like FAU where we don't have a lot of winning seasons or play big name teams at home every year. Although the University of South Carolina doesn't sell alcohol inside the stadium, they allow tailgating outside. The University of Miami sells alcohol inside the stadium and allows tailgaters.

If Lockhart Stadium is so worried about liability with underage drinking, hire more police. You can't punish the responsible of-agers for the irresponsible under-agers. Now, instead of drinking in the parking lot and not having any more alcohol during the game so that they can sober up to drive, students will probably be driving "shit-faced" from a restaurant or house party tailgate down to the game.

Safety or liability - pick one Lockhart.