Cal Poly has heard a variety of responses to the bottle-throwing incident during its men’s soccer match against UC Santa Barbara on Oct. 17, when a crowd of 11,075 – the third-largest in regular-season college men’s soccer history – filed into Alex G. Spanos Stadium.
Yet rather than dwell on what could have been done, Cal Poly, which will look to avenge the 1-0, double-overtime loss at UCSB in Harder Stadium at 7 tonight, used the display to learn from mistakes.
UCSB expects a crowd of 12,000 to 14,000 and has requested additional event staff and police officers for tonight, Hazel Ando, assistant to UCSB athletic director Mark Massari said Tuesday.
“They are working on a sportsmanship initiative,” Cal Poly athletic director Alison Cone said. “I don’t expect (UCSB fans) to retaliate; I expect that they will act like they typically had acted.”
Cal Poly political science senior Steve Kristoff agreed with Cone’s prediction and described the Cal Poly fan misconduct as surreal.
“It was kind of what you expect to see in a movie,” he added.
Some UCSB fan antics may involve tortilla throwing, which was endorsed by Gauchos fan Andrew Schmedake in an Oct. 22 letter to the editor of the Daily Nexus, UCSB’s student newspaper.
“Go crazy in the Loco section and throw tortillas when (the Gauchos) score,” he wrote.
At a Cal Poly athletics news conference Oct. 20, Cal Poly head coach Paul Holocher called tortilla throwing “stupid” and “not part of being a fan of the game.”
When the Gauchos return to San Luis Obispo, fans will be met by professional event staff to supplement Cal Poly’s own staff, and outside beverages will be banned, Cone said.
“We will not only have more staff, but more experienced and better trained staff,” she said. “We are checking student IDs more carefully to make sure that fans are truly Cal Poly students. We had 30 event staff and four police officers. The presence was not felt enough.”
Security will also issue free tickets to students to better monitor crowd capacity, Cone said. These security measures will pertain to highly anticipated rivalry games in every sport.
“It’s a little bit concerning to watch the decline of sportsmanship even in our own fans,” she said. “We are going to try to do a little more to educate our fans about sportsmanship and what we expect to see.”
Cal Poly business junior Rochelle Nelson said she was disappointed to see Cal Poly fans’ poor conduct but recognized the nature of a fierce rivalry.
“It happens on an international stage,” she said. “I wouldn’t want them to crack down. I don’t think it will happen again.”
Historically, Holocher pointed out, soccer fans have been particularly passionate, especially on a global level.
“In different parts of the world, it’s like a religion,” said Holocher, who voiced adamant disdain for the especially unruly behavior Oct. 17. “There are similar passions here (in the U.S.) for Duke basketball or great football programs, but to see this type of crowd for Cal Poly Mustangs soccer means we are developing a soccer culture here; people are really feeling a part of this program.”
Soccer matches would be missing something if fans didn’t get involved in games because it is a part of the culture of the sport, political science junior Mike Melzer said.
“I actually enjoyed (the bottle throw) because the culture of soccer is rowdy,” he said. “People feel like they can be involved. We’re not going to sit on our hands.”
Melzer went on to say that UCSB goalkeeper Kristopher Minton, who picked up the bottle, single-handedly won the contest by delaying the game.
“It was all strategy,” he added.
Other students said the antics altered the game’s outcome.
“It was immature and uncalled for because it changed the energy of the game,” mechanical engineering senior David Hicks said. “Soccer fans tend to be rowdy, but they were just drunk people rather than fans.”
Holocher said it wasn’t all bad for the image of the program, though.
“For every e-mail I got that mentioned the bottle throwing, I got five e-mails saying they had the time of their life at the game,” he said. “People saw for the first time how passionate college sports can be.”
Holocher said he expects tonight’s atmosphere to be “off the charts.”
“I haven’t seen a rivalry develop in college sports this quickly – ever,” he said. “This is the biggest rivalry in college soccer.”