The second season of “Show and Blow,” a program through the Offices of the Dean of Students to help curb high-risk drinking at UW-Madison home football games, will resume Saturday.
Launched in fall 2007, Show and Blow requires students with a previous alcohol-related ejection to blow into a portable Breathalyzer test before subsequent games to prove their sobriety.
Underage students need to blow a .00 for admittance, while those over 21 need to blow below .08 percent. Students’ names added to Show and Blow do not carry over from year to year.
In a letter sent to all student season ticket holders Wednesday, Assistant Dean Ervin Cox outlined changes to the program, which include shifting from an honor system for previously ejected students to electronically tagged vouchers.
This season, in addition to the individual who is kicked out, any other student using a tagged voucher will need to comply with the program at future games.
Cox said the shift was to improve accountability for those with season tickets.
“We’re trying to address the really serious issues with alcohol we have on our campus,” Cox said. “It gives students a second chance to show that they can be responsible and support the team.”
Students placed in the program will receive an e-mail before the games reminding them to report to a designated area inside Camp Randall on game day.
Cox said students who do not pass the PBT will not be allowed to enter the stadium, and the ODOS would follow up with those students to discuss further consequences. However, he said no one has ever failed the pre-game test.
University of Wisconsin Police Lt. Bill Larson said students who stumble, pass out, vomit or act disorderly are at risk of being arrested or ejected at football games.
“The students that we don’t come in contact with are having a good time, but they’re acting within a reasonable manner,” he said.
Larson said the number of student arrests at games has decreased in the last three years, and attributed the drop in part to ODOS involvement.
“I don’t believe since [ODOS has] been with us that we’ve had a repeat offender in almost six years.”
