http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/03/22/cricket.death/index.html
Although this isnt too prevelant in the United States, it definitely got me thinking. After a huge loss in the World Cup Cricket tournament, the Pakistani Coach was murdered.
"Woolmer's death came less than 24 hours after former world champion Pakistan was beaten and eliminated by the relatively unknown Irish team on St. Patrick's Day, one of the biggest shocks in World Cup cricket history. The loss on Saturday prompted outrage among the team's hardcore fans, with protesters burning effigies of Woolmer and the team captain in Karachi" (Raedler, 2007).
I was curious to see if my favorite UAA people had some insight into the security of players and coaches in big games compared to regular games. Obviously, Gator games are much different than the World Cup in countries where they are very passionate about it, but I was still interested. Do our coaches always have security with them on road trips or would they rather just be normal people around the hotel and whatnot. Is it taken into account when we play in cities such as Lexington where we know that their fans really hate our basketball team? If I was a big time coach and saw incident slike this, it would definitely frighten me. As we've seen in random occurences with fans that jump onto the field to fight coaches, some people out there are just plain crazy!
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As a matter of fact, the coaches do have security with them at away games. We have UPD officers that travel with the team. Whomever advances the team for our staff gets together with the home teams local law enforcement and makes sure there is security at the hotel the team is staying in.
For championship games, a few more UPD travels. The teams busses are police escorted wherever they go. The law enforcement worked very well with us out in AZ. There was security at the hotel 24 hours a day. We managed to have the entire hotel occupied with just Gator fans (invited by the UAA) which also helped out.
Your right...people are crazy and will do crazy things. Unfortunately it's just the kind of world we live in today.
For some odd reason, when you were talking about ridiculous fans, I thought of our friend Paul Johnson's picture of him with Billy Donovan. If he can get that close to Billy, one would assume that a determined murderer could too. I guess the thinking is that there's not going to be some mastermind hatching a plan to off him; it would be more along the lines of a drunken, kentucky blue-clad imbecile running towards him with a broken beer bottle. One would expect UPD to be able to handle that situation.
This reminds me of another situation with overzealous, dangerous fans. In 1994, when the World Cup (of soccer, or futbol) was held here in the states, the U.S. played Colombia. Now Colombia is now powerhouse (0 World Cup titles, unless I'm forgetting something), but they take their soccer very seriously. U.S. Soccer was, much like it's been in every world cup in the past 16 years except for 2002, pathetic. Long story short, a Colombian defenseman scored an own goal and the U.S. won 2-1. Not long after returning to his home country, that Colombian player was shot and killed.
If memory serves, we haven't had a situation like this in the states, at least not for a long time. Here's to hoping we keep that going.
This was a good post because it has gotten all of us thinking. On a side note, I remember hearing about the Colombian soccer player who was killed after scoring the own-goal in the World Cup against the United States, I think he was at a bar or something. That was tragic.
I definitely think the coaches and players should have the utmost security whether on the road or at home. This is even a bigger reason as to why fans should not be allowed to rush fields of play following big games. What is to stop a drunk student or fan from hitting an opposing player, or even referee, while in the mass confusion? In my opinion, nothing. Before, the main reason I stated that fans should not be allowed to rush the field of play was for the safety of the fans, but clearly, the safety of th players, coaches, and officials comes into play as well.
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