Ole Miss students celebrate a home run by Sikes Orvis during a game last season. DM Photo | Thomas Graning
Torrential beer showers at Swayze Field are considered a tradition by many Ole Miss students; however, those who wish to continue consuming or throwing alcohol in the right field student section must now wear wristbands that verify they are of the legal drinking age.
This new regulation, issued via email by the athletic department on Wednesday, stated that in order for students to receive a wristband they must have their university-issued ID scanned by security to determine if they are 21 or older.
“It’s really our job, we believe, to protect the mystique of right field,” Athletic Director Ross Bjork said Thursday. “Right field is an asset to our baseball environment, to our athletic program, and with that we must provide a safe and fun environment at the same time.”
After last season, the University Police Department and the Office of Student Affairs approached athletics to create a system to identify those of legal drinking age. Their intentions were to be in compliance with the law, to provide a safe environment and to protect students of the university.
“The reason why the university police asked us to do this was that, when there were problems, whether it was behavior or over indulgence, they had no way to identify who was 21 and who was not,” Bjork explained. “This gives them the ability to easily identify students who are of age, and it really just makes for a cleaner system.”
UPD Chief Calvin Sellers said the issue of underage drinking in right field has “gotten worse over the last few years.” He hopes that the implementation of the new rule will assist his department in controlling illegal behavior.
“We’ve caught 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds out there drinking because other people make it available to them,” Sellers said. “We’ve got to get a handle on that, or we’re going to have to eliminate it all together.”
When the regulations were announced Wednesday, some students took to social media to express their frustration with the new requirements, however, junior accountancy major Derrick Bradford said he was surprised the university had not implemented this rule sooner.
“I could imagine that the younger people would be kind of upset. It’s kind of like a tradition,” he said. “I know Ole Miss had been ranked in the top five for the last ten years for baseball attendance. It will be interesting to see if this cuts down on the attendance ranking for us nationally.”
In addition to the new requirement of wristbands, couches, futons and similar types of furniture will no longer be permitted inside the stadium.
“Over the last couple of years we’ve really had a lot of issues of couches being left out there,” Bjork said. “Once they’re left out there, no one claims them, and so they really become trash. We decided that’s just a necessary step to keep (the stadium) as clean as possible.”
Ice chests and coolers that exceed a capacity of 20 quarts – about 24 cans – will also be prohibited. Bjork said this is the same size cooler NASCAR allows inside their venues. He described 20 quart coolers as “the industry standard.”
“Right field could be taken away and be, really, outside of our control if we didn’t implement some more safe measures,” Bjork said. “That’s not what we want in any way, shape or form, so, this, we believe, is the right step.”
Despite the new changes, Bradford thinks student attendance at Ole Miss baseball games will remain high.
“People are still going to go out there,” Bradford said. “Baseball is a good time whether you’re drinking or not.”
