Michigan Stadium - Always been alcohol free?
I have a Domer co-worker in the office that keeps saying U of M fans are classless due to a U of M fan pouring beer over his then 17-year old brothers head during the 1989 game. I know they don't allow alcohol at the stadium now, but did they back in 1989? I suspect security was lax at that time compared to today, and it could have been smuggled in. However, this guy is pretty much stating it was accepted and allowed. I wasn't in Ann Arbor then and I have no idea. Part of me wants to believe him, but the other part realizes he is a Domer.
Thanks! Go Blue!
September 9th, 2011 at 3:51 PM ^
from 1961 through 1976 and attended a few games during high school before that. I don't ever remember seeing anyone with a cooler and no one had small personal ones at the time. The drinking was done at the tailgates. However there were people (including students) with flasks hidden under their coats and they were very discrete. One enterprising old fart who sat in front of me sipped on a straw sticking out of a tube disguised as a cane!
I know that no alcohol was ever sold in the stadium during that time or any other since. I also don't remember seeing signs posted prohibiting drinking, but I'll bet you were ejected if caught. No purses or bags were checked at the gate.
During the 90's I lived in Milwaukee and beer was sold in Camp Randall. Can't tell you how bad it got for Michigan fans in that atmosphere!
September 9th, 2011 at 3:57 PM ^
A cane??? That man is a genius!
Been to Camp Randall. Those bastards can drink.
September 9th, 2011 at 4:28 PM ^
I can top the cane, I think.
About 1985 or so. The guy sitting in front of me has binoculars around his neck, but he's not using them. Midway through the first quarter, Michigan scores a touchdown. He unscrews the eyepiece, and takes a nice long drink from the binoculars. I was impressed.
To this day, I don't know if that was a specially designed flask that he bought in a store, or if he "modified" his own pair of binoculars. Either way, whomever he was, I hope he is still going to games and wearing his binoculars...
September 9th, 2011 at 7:32 PM ^
They are called Barnoculars. Last year I saw one of the security guys at the gate looking through binoculars to make sure they were real.
September 9th, 2011 at 3:55 PM ^
I remember going to games as a kid in the late-70s and early 80s. My buddy and I (and tons of other kids) used to collect the empites for the ten cent deposits while our fathers finished off their beers. I don't remember coolers, but there must have been given the number of cans, bottles, etc.
As for 89, I was a freshman. I can tell you that wine skins were as much a part of the student dress code as maize t-shirts are now. In theory, we had to hide them. However, there is no possible way we were that clever that we never got caught. I also have a specific memory of that year when I was tasked with smuggling in some of the wine skins for the frat I was pledging. Like a fool, I put one down on the seat and it fell into the aisle. As I picked it up, I saw an usher looking right at me with the thing in my hand. I was stone cold busted. The usher just smiled and gave me a thumbs-up.
The cops on the outside of the stadium were a different story . . .
September 9th, 2011 at 7:40 PM ^
My first game was the 10-10 OSU tie in 73 and it was my intro to weed (I was 13 and sitting with the hippie brother of my aunt). As a student in 78-79, my friends and I usually brought in 12-packs of Stroh's. (On at least one occasion I had a pint of Popov Double Vodka, 160 proof, very effective for clearing sinuses.) At the 79 Indiana game when Anthony Carter made his legendary catch, I was bent over stuffing our empties back into the 12-pack for the deposits. Never saw The Catch until Michigan Replay the next morning.
September 9th, 2011 at 4:03 PM ^
I would ask him what his 17 year old brother did that deserved wasting a slightly warm but perfectly delicous contraband beer.
September 9th, 2011 at 4:22 PM ^
Effin Rocket. Cold and rainy. Come on Bo why not kick away from the guy the second time? I might get over it some day but it has only been 22 years.
September 9th, 2011 at 4:24 PM ^
Since 1977 my freshman year...
Beer has not been sold in the stadium
you could bring in coolers during my school years not sure when they put a stop to that mid 80s I think
We brought a mini keg in to the stadium my freshman year
No woman EVER got tossed over the top
The practice of passing woman up was put to a stop my senior year by some woman rights group it was "degrading to woman"
As most of you probably dont know passing up was your change to grab what you wanted as they went over your head. Yes we were pigs
There were litterally trains in every section of the student section of woman getting passed up
And yes most of the woman volunteered to get passed up
September 9th, 2011 at 4:37 PM ^
I helped pass women and at least one drunken guy. That was more than a decade after your freshman year. It may have been forbidden but it was still being done along with alcohol and pungent herb smuggling, mannequins, beachballs, frisbees and God only knows the other crap we used to pull. I've already said my piece regarding the person who went over. That is all.
September 9th, 2011 at 4:42 PM ^
everybody brought it in. No security to speak of at all. I always had a flask and nobody ever said anything to me.
September 9th, 2011 at 4:55 PM ^
Booze steadied you so that you were not afraid to tear down a goal post in appropriate situations. Today's youth are too busy posting on their iPhones to bother collecting goal posts for posterity's sake. I will miss the all-male cheerleading squad.
September 9th, 2011 at 6:00 PM ^
havent been since the 2007 osu game and im flying in tonight. as an alum of a southern school im used to drinking smuggled alcohol during games. what is the likelihood of successfully bringing in a pint of whiskey?
September 9th, 2011 at 7:38 PM ^
September 9th, 2011 at 8:05 PM ^
Stadium employee here.
If we see it, we are required to gently remind you that it's not allowed - and - if needed, repeat if needed, direct the friendly neighborhood police to gently escort you out of the stadium.
Lastly, as I understand it, it has been a big ten wide rule that alcohol is not allowed in the stadiums.
September 9th, 2011 at 8:35 PM ^
Don't TASE me, bro'.
September 9th, 2011 at 8:09 PM ^
You used to be allowed to take whatever you wanted into the stadium. Then, one year, they banned alcohol. Soon thereafter, they banned everything except water. Then, they banned "pass-outs" during halftime. Now, they have banned water. What's really funny is that the first ban was in the pre-9/11 era and they used "security" as an excuse even back then. Really, though, it's all about the money, just like it always has been.
As for not selling alcohol, it's pretty stupid. They sell alcohol at USF football (off campus) and basketball (on campus) games, and there isn't any overt drunken behavior on the part of the fans. The University wants you to be their captive and spend more money? Great. Let fans spend it on beer or wine if they want to.
Alcohol doesn't turn people into assholes; they were already that way in the first place.
September 9th, 2011 at 8:36 PM ^
at Michigan stadium in the 1980s was sitting next to a guy whose seat was a 24 pack of Stroh's beer, sitting in the aisle that runs up the 50 yard line--gotta admire that in a certain way. So yeah, if beer was banned, the Big House was a speakeasy.
September 9th, 2011 at 9:27 PM ^
September 9th, 2011 at 10:06 PM ^
UM games in the 70s when my brother was a student. His frat had seats together and beer was plentiful, as was Mother Nature. When I was a student in the mid 80s the flow of alcohol continued unabated. Everybody wore jean jackets then, which conveniently had large pockets inside for contraband. Yes, the good old days.
September 9th, 2011 at 10:24 PM ^
While we're discussing drinking recepticles in Michigan Stadium, can I voice a bit of nostalgia for the plastic season cups Coke used to come in? Still have a big box of 'em for gameday drinking. I miss seeing people walking the rows during the band postgame show with stacks of cups 4 feet high.
September 10th, 2011 at 3:30 AM ^
I've seen it done. I was a freshman last year and some Illinois fans behind us snuck a pint of Jack in. I didn't know until they got pissed and threw it, which lead to the glass erupting a row behind me. And to make it better they pissed in the bottle before throwing it.