SAVANNAH, Georgia --- A group of about 15 NCAA representatives from all three divisions is looking at ways to create a safer environment for student-athletes, officials and fans during and after college athletic events.

The athletics directors, faculty athletics representatives, conference commissioners and NCAA staff met Saturday at the Hyatt Regency in Savannah as part of the NCAA’s Postgame Crowd Control Summit.

Dennis Poppe, the NCAA’s managing director for baseball and football, said the goal of the summit was to bring all three divisions together to discuss ways to manage and control the trend of fans rushing the court or field to avoid serious injuries or death.

"This is motivated by the NCAA strategic plan related to sportsmanship, a portion of which includes fan behavior,” Poppe said. “We are looking at whether there are rules or policies we can enforce, are there rules or checklists we can provide our members to assist them in the issues of crowd control, and are there ideas that our members are currently doing that others can implement? This is really one of the most pressing issues of sportsmanship because it deals with the safety of our student-athletes and fans.”

Sam Schuman, chancellor of the University of Minnesota – Morris, opened the discussion with a recollection of events that occurred on his Division III campus last fall when a basketball student-athlete, Rick Rose, was among a group students who stormed the football field after the football team won its homecoming game – the last game to be played on the school’s old field.

"This particular homecoming contest was an exciting game, going into two overtimes,” Schuman recalled. “At the end of the second overtime period, we scored, and won. It was an especially sweet victory, and it also happened that this was the very last football game to be played on our old college field…

"As the game ended, a group of perhaps 10 to 12 students, many of whom were members of our varsity basketball team who had been enthusiastically cheering for their friends on the football squad, dashed onto the field. They headed for the North goal post, but were turned away by a member of our five-person University police force (two other officers were, as our league recommends, escorting officials off the field and into the nearby gym). The exuberant students then ran to the unguarded South goal posts, calling to their friends on the victorious football field to join them. Some did. About two dozen students leaped onto the post or began rocking it back and forth until it snapped and fell to the ground.

"One student, basketball player Rick Rose, was hanging onto the crossbeam when the goal fell. He was killed instantly. Emergency efforts by attending EMTs were to no avail. After about 10 minutes, Mr. Rose’s body was transferred to our nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.”

Schuman went on to describe what he called “a shocking tragedy,” adding that his goal in sharing his story is to stress the point that injuries and deaths from storming the court or field can happen anywhere, including Division II or III schools and in large and small crowds alike.

Schuman shared the lessons learned by him, his institution and everyone involved in the tragedy at Morris.

"I learned that it is finally the responsibility of us all – including college presidents or chancellors – to step forward to control fan behavior,” he said. “I should have gone onto the field and tried to stop the students from tearing down the goal posts. They might possibly have listened and there might have been a different outcome if I had acted and the students had listened to me. Every parent, alum, coach and faculty member at the game could have made the same effort. It is too easy to say that fan control is someone else’s job. It is too easy to do nothing when one should do something. It is too easy to treat actions as amusing until they turn tragic.”

Dan Wann, a psychology professor at Murray State University, shared various research that has been conducted on what causes aggressive behavior in groups of people. He said alcohol is one of the biggest contributors of these types of actions, but so are frustration, anger, crowding, heat and provocation of fans. Wann discussed four levels of spectator aggression: Level I – Response to what is happening; Level II – Premeditated (chants); Level III – Rioting; Level IV – Rioting continues outside the arena.

"Many sports fans not only don’t see downing the goal posts as a negative,” Wann said, "They don’t even understand why it’s not seen as a positive.”

A change in culture is the key to reducing the number of injuries and deaths related to storming the field, Wann said, acknowledging that it isn’t an easy task.

Craig Littlepage, athletics director at the University of Virginia and chair of the Division I men’s basketball committee, agreed, saying after fans were trampled at a University of Virginia – Florida State football game, many students said it was so much fun, they’d do it again.

"There were several dozen fans, mostly students, who were in the emergency room,” Littlepage said. “Some had been taken off the field to the hospital on stretchers with broken bones; several had neck braces. The statement made to me by some of these fans was it was fun and they would do it all over again. It’s really an institutional problem, not just an athletics problem.”

Acknowledging that all policies would not be relevant for all universities, the group agreed to put together a short list of “global issues” that institutions of all sizes must address. These “global issues” include the safety of student-athletes and other game personnel, the destruction of property (e.g., goal posts), and the safety of spectators. The group plans to develop and distribute a checklist of other ideas or policies that institutions may choose to implement given their unique circumstances (e.g., traditions, history of incidents, crowd sizes, sports).

The group will work with NCAA governance liaisons to give updates to NCAA presidential boards in each division during their April meetings and recommendations for future courses of action during their August meetings.