It was 35 minutes before kickoff of last Sunday’s Bears-Packers game and three goofs, in full Bear regalia, clutching cups of beer and obviously intoxicated, stood at the top of steps leading into the south entrance of Soldier Field. As thousands of ticket-holders streamed below them, they singled out Green Bay fans — some with small children — to taunt.
“Hey! hey! You in the green jacket over there: Yeah, you!” shouted one of the three young males. “[Brett] Favre’s gonna get hurt today. Lots of pain. It’s gonna be bad. Go home!”
The three laughed uproariously, took swigs from Miller Lite cups and looked for more Green Bay loyalists to harass. Their language was crude and boorish. They continued for 20 minutes.
For anyone who had never attended a Bears game and witnessed the scene, welcome — and check your sensibilities at the door. These contests are not for the faint-hearted and this has nothing to do with closeness of the scores.
Take that trio of hecklers. Please.
Though violating the franchise’s official game-day conduct code and an embarrassment even to many Bears fans, they never were admonished by security personnel. In fact, veteran spectators will tell you this was mild stuff compared with what frequently takes place inside Soldier Field.
Alcohol-fueled blue language, T-shirts with vulgarities printed on them and drunks requiring assistance from buddies are a matter of course at pro football games in Chicago. Fights are not uncommon, either.
It’s a scene that leaves some Bears fans reluctant to take their kids to the contests or, at the very least, leaves them trying to explain why people sometimes act this way.
The violent, intense nature of football undoubtedly brings out much of the bad behavior, but Chicago police, some academics and certainly team officials will tell you the game-day environment is no worse than in the past.
Jay Coakley, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs who has followed sports issues for 35 years, says stadium atmospheres actually may have improved over the years. This sense of friction, he said, is new and occurs because expectations have changed as teams such as the Bears market games as family events.
“I have a friend who says that most stadiums are men’s cultural centers,” said Coakley, a Chicago native. “They reaffirm traditional ideas about masculinity. I think, like in many other contexts, men have had to give up some of the privileges they’ve had when they were controlling the situation. There is no reason for moral panic right now. That’s not to say there aren’t some real jerks in the stadium.”
Tom Potter, a financial planner from Batavia, knows he had a pair sitting next to him. Even though his son Luke, who was with him, is 23, he still came away from the game appalled by the behavior of the two fans. “They must’ve had eight beers apiece before the first quarter was over,” he said. “Every other word was an obscenity, and it’s not exactly like they whispered. I’m no prude, but I think the games have gotten worse.
“People pay more for tickets now, so it’s like they’re saying, `I’m sitting in this seat and this gives me the right to say anything because I paid my money.’ Whatever happened to plain, old courtesy, let alone sportsmanship? I’ve brought my two daughters to games over the years too. Usually I have to give them a lecture about what they’ll hear.”
Rachel Oates, 10, came all the way from Westchester County, N.Y., to see the Packers with her mother. Near their seats in the upper deck, bare-chested men “were saying bad words,” Oates said.
But, she admitted, it was no worse then when she saw the rival Boston Red Sox play against the New York Yankees in the 2004 playoffs. “It’s about the same,” she said, comparing the rowdiness of the Chicago and New York crowds.
In Chicago, Mitch Rosen, station manager for all-sports WSCR-AM 670, who has been in the business 20 years here for ESPN-AM 1000 and WGN-AM 720, says none of the city’s other athletic events comes close to matching the non-stop intensity that comes with a Bears game. He thinks it’s partly because there are only eight home dates per season as well as the rugged, intense nature of the sport itself.
“There have been game days when I went into my office at 5 or 6 in the morning and I’ll see Winnebagos with Bear flags already headed down the street for Soldier Field,” Rosen said. “You don’t see that in any other sport in the city. A Bears crowd is a different breed.”
“It’s uncomfortable for the parents, at least it is for me,” said Chuck Rees, 43, a maintenance manager from Orland Park. “It’s kind of everything you don’t want your kids exposed to.” However, his 12-year-old son, Mitch, said he didn’t hear anything he hadn’t heard in school.
Twenty years ago, in addition to winning the Super Bowl, the Bears introduced a family section in old Soldier Field — 1,640 seats set aside that would be alcohol free. Today, the team maintains it, but there are only 275 seats in the section.
George McCaskey, Bears ticket manager, said the demand is high to get in the sections and there is a long waiting list — more than there was in the old stadium. He noted other NFL clubs have similar accommodations as well as KidZones. “I think one club even has a profanity-free section, which I always thought was kind of odd. What, profanity is allowed in all other sections?”
The Bears have plenty of rules governing conduct. Grounds for ejections include “inconsiderate behavior,” smoking in undesignated areas, displaying apparel with profane or abusive language, abuse of intoxicants and harassment of visiting team fans.
Tim LeFevour, general manager for SMG, the company that manages Soldier Field for the Chicago Park District, said Sunday’s game was no worse or better than most Bears games. He has been involved with the games for more than 20 years and said the number of arrests or ejections in that time have remained approximately the same.
“You look at old Soldier Field, though, and compare it to the amenities fans have now, and you would’ve thought things might have gone down a bit,” LeFevour said. “I guess it’s just the nature of the fan. I think a lot of those who get upset are people who don’t go a lot. If you do go, you’re probably going to experience the fan who’s loud and obnoxious at some point.”
Alcohol sales are ended at the end of the third quarter, but that’s already too late for some spectators, who might have started hours early in the parking lot, tailgating. The team, in conjunction with the Miller Brewing Co. and concessionaire, Sportservice, maintain a designated driver program for intoxicated fans.The Bears maintain a hot line for complaints. Every Thursday, McCaskey relays a list of seats where trouble occurred in the last game to the firm that handles security for the stadium. These locations are then watched closely during the next game for trouble, which sometimes leads to fans losing their tickets for future contests.
Not all the trouble occurs in the seats, however. There is heckling of visitors both entering and leaving games outside Soldier Field, on concourses and in refreshment lines. Then, of course, there are the restrooms, crowded magnets — especially at halftime — for fans who’ve been drinking and never seem to have trouble expressing X-rated sentiments.
There are twice as many bathrooms in the new stadium as there were in the old facility, and one new wrinkle is family restrooms. They’ve been set aside for parents with small children, but most of the people waiting to use them Sunday were adults without kids.
Standing in line to use one of them, Larry Ehrhart, 40, of Tinley Park, lightheartedly warned his 9-year-old son, Joey: “What you hear in the bathroom, stays in the bathroom.”
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mconklin@tribune.com
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