New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Keeping a close eye on fan conduct
How officials keep things in check at high school games
Danbury hosted its first high school football game in more than 22 months when the Hatters faced Norwalk in week three of the CIAC season. Athletic director Chip Salvestrini described the crowd as the largest they’ve had at a football game in five to 10 years.
“It was absolutely huge,” Salvestrini said, estimating there were as many as 3,700 people in attendance. “My guess is that people just want to get out and do stuff now and they’re going to high school games. I just could not believe the crowd we had on Friday.”
Similar scenes have played out across the state with fans flocking to to games a year after the pandemic took away high school football and all its pageantry. Packed bleachers, especially energetic student sections, play a big part in creating memorable moments.
But with the return of crowds comes an added element of keeping people safe, under control and respectful. Creative, witty chants can cross a line to insensitive and cruel in an instant.
Salvestrini likened the approach to crowd control to preparing a football game plan.
“As a football coach, you always have to worry about your offense, defense and special teams,” Salvestrini said. “With high school athletics and crowds, you’re really preparing for that in the same way.
“When I first started in the business many years ago, the principals would say ‘let your coaches do the crowd control.’ That’s gone out the window.”
Conversations with athletic directors hit on a few common denominators: Preparation, communication and trust.
“A lot of it is in the planning,” Norwalk AD Doug Marchetti, whose Bears played at Danbury last Friday, said. “Chip is the best in terms of he sends me a report early in the week: Here’s what’s going to happen at what time, here’s where to park, here are the people (to talk to) and their names, and here are their phone numbers. I’ve tried to mimic what Chip has done. He’s fabulous in terms of organization.”
Even with preparation, incidents occur, as was the case during the first three weeks of the Connecticut football season.
While hosting Staples during week three, fans at Cheshire High School waved an Israeli flag. Staples superintendent Thomas Scarice said following the game he was made aware of “a number of social media posts alleging anti-Semitic and racist actions and comments directed towards Staples players and students.” After an investigation, officials determined the students waving the flag meant no harm, and there was no corroboration of racist or antisemitic chants.
That same week, a Montville cheerleader claimed she encountered racial slurs yelled at her and was spat on following a game hosted by East Catholic in Manchester. The game was won by East Catholic 27-26 in overtime.
The cheerleader told The Day that East Catholic students said “Go home, n-----,” as she was getting ready to leave after the game.
“I finally lost it and started having a panic attack,” the cheerleader told The Day. “To have hundreds of people screaming at you and have racial slurs thrown at you, getting spit at and water thrown at you is scary, especially if it has never happened in your life before. I never want to have this happen in my life ever again.”
After the incident was reported, the CIAC and the two schools began an investigation. Each school released a letter in response to the events earlier this week.
East Catholic president Sean P. Brennan wrote that the school has “no tolerance for derisive and unkind words or behavior directed at our own students or students from other schools.”
“We are heartbroken that a young woman from Montville High School has such a negative experience at East Catholic,” Brennan said. “If we knew who the offending part was, that person would have been disciplined by now.”
In response, the schools will be sending student representatives to the CIAC offices for an upcoming Class Act Council training session and discussion.
Learning and adapting are part of the process with crowd control, according to Salvestrini.
“Even with the staff we had (at the Norwalk-Danbury game), given the number of spectators, we didn’t have enough people where we needed to be,” Salvestrini said. “You’re always putting out a fire here or there, and behavior patterns are much different than they were a few years ago, so there’s many things you have to be prepared for.”
Marchetti, who has been at Norwalk for eight years, considers himself “lucky” because he’s had a consistent group of people to work with during that time.
“I trust them and their judgement,” Marchetti said. “They’re great people and they can talk through situations.”
At the Surf Club in Madison in Week 3, Daniel Hand hosted New Canaan in a Connecticut Football Alliance contest, and fans flocked to the Tigers’ first home game of 2021.
“Obviously, after 22 months without football, people were dying to get to see a game,” Hand AD Craig Semple said.
Hand hires security officers who are in the school building and he said they have a great relationship with the students.
“We’re reminding the kids of what our fan expectations are,” Semple said. “We want them to have fun, we want them to be loud, we want them to be proud, and we want to be positive.”
Semple said event staff will prepare during the week and meet again in the parking lot before every game to talk about what to look for. Walkie talkies are used by the athletic director, security people, the ticket takers and the trainer, so the communication is constant.”
Semple said that at times, people will tell him he has a great job because he gets to come to games, and enjoy watching the athletes play, but they don’t see the behind-the-scenes activities and preparation needed to make things run smoothly.
“That’s the best compliment you could ever get because that means you’re doing everything the right way,” Semple said. “People aren’t there to see (crowd control), they’re there to enjoy a game.”
Sportsmanship is important and Semple said at times, some chants will have to be shut down if they’re inappropriate. There’s also the element of younger kids attending games and seeing what the older kids are doing.
“If you don’t stop the behavior that’s not acceptable, they’ll take it to the next level the following week,” Semple said. “The young kids are watching too, so they have to set an example for the next group of kids coming up. That’s important too.”
In the featured game of Week Three, Newtown visited Darien in a rematch of the 2019 Class LL final. Crowds packed the home and visiting stands and the student sections were loud and energetic.
Darien athletic director Chris Manfredonia had a lot to prepare for in a game he compared to the Turkey Bowl against rival New Canaan.
“We meet during the week and we have a staff of security guys and we talk about where we’re going to position people so we can best manage the crowd,” Manfredonia said. “We have all of our administrators there as well to help out with crowd control, and Newtown did the same thing on their side.”
Darien police also put out a traffic advisory during the week, announcing that two of the three roads leading into the campus would be closed before the game, allowing for a better flow of cars.
“There are a lot of little details that go into hosting a game of that magnitude,” Manfredonia said.
He added that the Blue Wave student section was great and “really into the game,” tossing white chalk into the air during the pregame and lighting up their cell phones and waving them in the air in the final minutes of their team’s victory.
Manfredonia said Darien will send security to road games as well, “just to make sure we’re acting appropriately. The kids have been great.”
Fairfield Prep’s football team is off to a 3-0 start, giving the school’s “Bomb Squad” plenty to celebrate.
The Jesuits play their home games at Rafferty Stadium on the Fairfield University campus, and Prep AD Tom Curran said the university’s public safety and Fairfield police team with Prep administrators to help with crowd control and traffic.
“Monday or Tuesday, we talk about it to make sure we have the appropriate staffing and set up a plan,” Curran said. “Then when we arrive, we make sure everyone’s in place, we want for everyone to show up, and then we run our plan.
“We’d rather (fans) go in there and feel like we’re organized and we have it under control and that’s why we do it.”