OHIO Football
Football players continue to miss out on Halloween
By Britton Dove, Staff Writer
November 2, 2007 | 1:38 p.m.
When Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt first came to Ohio University in 2005, the varsity football game schedule extended through 2009. One thing is almost certain each year: the Bobcats will be on the road Halloween weekend. This year was no exception.
The annual Ohio Halloween festival dates back to Oct. 31, 1974, when several students in costumes trapped a Baskin-Robbins semi-truck on Court Street as it attempted to make a delivery. The event has now been sanctioned by the city of Athens for the past 10 years.
As for the players on the football team, they haven’t been able to partake in the celebration for the past five years. The last home game during the weekend was in 2001, when the Bobcats lost 24-14 to Kent State University.
“It doesn’t matter to me [having a Halloween home game],” Solich said. “I’m not against it. It’s a night where strange things happen, but strange things happen here every night. We are prepared to play football anytime of the day, home, away, Halloween. I’m able to go either way.”
Although the football team may be willing to play anytime and anywhere, Hocutt and the Mid-American Conference have an annual agreement to keep the team on the road until further notice.
“It’s a conscious decision that we have made with the Mid-American Conference in requesting to be on the road Halloween weekend,” Hocutt said. “Obviously, it is a busy time in our community, and in our foreseeable future I anticipate us wanting to continue to request an away game during that weekend.”
The MAC allows each school in the conference to choose a date each season that they would like to protect on an annual basis. Some schools reserve a home game for their homecoming celebration, and other schools reserve a date to keep the team on the road because of an event that may become a distraction, such as Halloween.
“It’s an annual request,” Hocutt said. “It’s something coach Solich and I have talked about a couple of years ago, and if something were to present itself for me to look at the situation differently, or something presented itself to make [Solich] look at it differently, then we would sit down and talk about it again. At this time I think that we are in agreement that that’s the date we want to continue to protect.”
In the past, distractions have presented themselves during this particular weekend, including the consumption of alcoholic beverages. In the last four years, many of the arrests during Halloween have contributed to the total 1,129 total liquor law arrests and the 4,528 people referred for alcoholic disciplinary action.
The football team has had its share of trouble with the law, as well. In the past three years, there have been 39 different players who have been stopped by the Athens Police, according to the Athens Municipal Courts Web site. Of those 39 players, there have been 63 different cases that range from speeding tickets to disorderly conduct to underage drinking.
“It’s probably a good thing [that the football team is on the road],” said freshman Chris Spegal, a red-shirt lineman. “This team has had trouble with players drinking, so it’s a good idea for keeping the team on track.”
According to Spegal, the coaching staff keeps control of the team by renting a hotel before home games like many other NCAA schools do to keep track of their players. It’s after the games where players get into trouble, according to Spegal, and there are a lot of opportunities to get into trouble in Athens on Halloween weekend.
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