The Rolling Out the Red Carpet campaign, an initiative launched to promote sportsmanship and curb growing hostility toward fans of opposing teams, has been moderately successful, according to UW-Madison officials.
\For a first year, we think it's been a good success. We're pretty happy with what we've achieved,"" said UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas. ""I don't think we're claiming credit [for stamping] out all the problems, so I think we're just going to keep at it for the next few years.""
The proposal was initiated in response to a number of complaints about the mounting levels of vitriolic sentiment toward out-of-town fans by antagonistic Badger fans, especially after last year's Ohio State game.
""One of the most disturbing parts of it was that fans were essentially fearing for their safety,"" Lucas said. ""They were being physically and verbally intimidated by Badger fans.""
He cited two specific complaints filed-one in which a man had a trash can hurled at him, and one in which a man was knocked down outside of the stadium in front of his son.
""People felt their safety had been endangered by coming to an athletic event,"" Lucas said. ""It wasn't what we wanted for Camp Randall or for any of our other athletic events.""
In response to these complaints, a council of 20 to 25 student representatives from Associated Students of Madison and other organizations met regularly since last winter and worked in conjunction with UW-Madison officials to determine the best course of action in quelling the hostility.
According to Lucas, the council discussed ""what it means to be a Badger fan, which, in our estimation, is all the enthusiasm in the world, but there's a certain line out there.""
""When it comes to being physical or in your face in terms of harassing someone, that's over the line, and that's not what we want from our fans,"" Lucas said.
This year, Rolling Out the Red Carpet has largely been a campaign of public awareness. Thirty-second video shorts encouraging hospitality toward visitors were broadcast intermittently at football games. In addition, student ambassadors clad in fluorescent green vests offered stadium information and discount coupons to visitors.
However, despite the program's efforts, its success has proven ""tough to gauge,"" according to Lucas, and was essentially limited to the absence of ""physically aggressive and scary feedback"" the Athletic Department received last year.
""I would say the number of critical letters we've received has been reduced this year,"" said UW-Madison Associate Athletic Director of Communications Steve Malchow. ""I think we've certainly made some gains this year.""
""We certainly did not hear or get complaints of any of those kinds of things like we did last year,"" said UW-Madison Assistant Police Chief Dale Burke.
He added different factors accounted for a certain amount of the behavior discrepancies between this year and last year.
""Sometimes a lot of different things factor into [these] situations ... times of the games, who the opponent is, those kinds of things. I think what was good for us this year is that we only had one home game after the time change,"" he said. ""When it gets dark earlier and you've got people out after dark and they're intoxicated, and you've got that kind of environment, your risk for those kinds of things increases substantially.""
Still, Burke touted the Rolling Out the Red Carpet initiative as a success.
""I think that the attitude, the fact that it was advertised, the fact that the university and the city made a statement that this was a priority, something we take seriously and [that] we want to turn this attitude around [was successful],"" Burke said. ""The program's got a good foothold right now, and I just hope it can be expanded and enhanced a little bit.""
Lucas agreed.
""It's not an easy thing to change the culture of the stadium or the athletics in a year, so we're just going to plan to keep it up for future years. We're going to hope that people hear it and heed the message,"" he said.
