Duke (#4) is a big rival of UMD (#22). I have heard about the Duke Flukes from Mr. Howler for years.  In fact, all sorts of hollering, yelling and cussing was going on in my house for the big game Wednesday night.  When the Terps won 79-72, there was great joy here at Howler Acres.  I feel certain most of you heard it from your houses. 

In College Park, however, the big win celebration  ended up in  unruly revelling and rioting that might result in  some expulsions from the University of Maryland.  The AP picked up the story and some very embarrassing pictures.  Most universities don’t take kindly to being made to look like a thug school. PG County police in riot gear and on horses tried to control a disorderly mob after the UMD win.

What a shame that joy has to be expressed by burning trash cans, cars and other things. Mob mentality is unacceptable. Most of the rioters are students although townies and some high school kids were in the mix, hoping to find a good party.

From Boston,com:

COLLEGE PARK, Md.—Police say they arrested 28 people when a rowdy celebration got out of hand after No. 22 Maryland beat No. 4 Duke in college basketball.

Police say those arrested face charges ranging from civil disturbance to destruction of property. Campus police say smaller groups there set a tree and trash cans ablaze.

Police say 23 of those arrested were students. One officer and four of those arrested had minor injuries.

Prince George’s County police Cpl. Larry Johnson says about 1,500 people poured onto a main road near Maryland’s campus after the Terrapins won 79-72 Wednesday night.

TV footage showed officers on horseback dispersing the crowd and police in riot gear patting down young men. Johnson says some threw snowballs and ice at police.

PG police arrested 28 and video tapes will be reviewed to identify other violators. Those found to be rioting face suspension or possibly expulsion from college. Alcohol was considered a major fact in this out of control behavior.   Those who were present at the riots were interviewed on TV tonight.  Naturally they were doing nothing and had to whine about ‘police brutality.’  Yawn. 

The smart thing to do when mob mentality is ruling is to walk, very quickly, away in the other direction.  A few hundred students have embarrassed their university, the alumni, and fellow students who cheered their team on and didn’t turn into cavemen over  a much deserved win.  Those rioting should be expelled.

21 Thoughts to “Some UMD Students Need to Grow Up”

  1. Captain Idiot-Face

    Lack of responsibility….we’re teaching it to our kids and whining about the result (no, not you Moon).

  2. Captain Idiot-Face

    The culture of entitlement…….take a big whiff, kiddies! Smells like nice big pile of cat-crap, doesn’t it?

  3. Gainesville Resident

    Unfortunately, this happens all too often when sports teams have a big win. In this particular case it doesn’t make U. of Md. look too good (I got my Master’s Degree from U. of Md.).

  4. Gainesville Resident

    That’s also typical about cries of “police brutality”. I’m sure there will be some who will want to now be the “victim” here, and even possibly their parents will support that position. I get kind of tired of seeing people who riot, and are uncooperative with police, portraying themselves as the victim and resorting to the cries of “police brutality”. If they hadn’t been acting like idiots, they might not have had to been manhandled by the police to get them under control! Not just rioters do this, but other people who misbehave in public in some way. Basically, if the police officer is trying to arrest you or get you to stop some rowdy or bad behavior, the best thing to do I think is to be completely cooperative, even if you think you’ve done nothing wrong. That’s what I would do if I ever was in that situation (not that I have been). Once you get combattive with a police officer, it can only lead to bad things!

  5. Gainesville Resident

    Captain Idiot-Face :
    Lack of responsibility….we’re teaching it to our kids and whining about the result (no, not you Moon).

    This is true – how many times have we actually seen a pro sports team win and people in that city acting crazy, drunk, and out of control who are much older than 21 – and the police have had to step in. The adults need to set better examples for the younger set.

  6. I agree with both of you. And Captain, I don’t think you will let the young mice get by with that crap either! There was always a lot of piper paying at the Howler house.

    Gainesville, you bring up a good point about the behavior after pro teams win. Many of those people are full adults not setting a good example.

    I want to see some expulsions. This theme here about college students assuming more responsibility is going to be a recurring one. College costs entirely too much. All over the United States students are demonstrating about high costs. There is no point in students acting like jerks.

    I grew up in Charlottesville, right off Rugby Road. Kids were brats but they didn’t burn things down. There was drunkeness but….Even during the fraternity weekends like Mid-Winters and Easters…no burning. Lots of drinking and barfing in the street. The cops would have arrested them and that would have been it.

  7. More stupidity– At Indiana University grounds people have to go out before each event that could spark rioting or over-zealous celebration and remove the statuary fish and put them in safekeeping. After the event is over, the fish are replaced. How about armed guards standing near the fish? how much does it cost to remove fish before basketball games for example? 4-5 fish out there at the fountain.

    During the Bobby KNight days this practice was commonplace.
    http://www.bloomingpedia.org/wiki/Knight_Riots

  8. Casual Observer

    Unfortunately, this is nothing new at UMD. Anytime they win a championship in anything, this is how the students behave. Back when my now adult kids were looking at colleges, I told them early on that UMD was a non-starter “because they are constantly burning stuff and rioting.” They laughed at me, but I meant it. 🙂

  9. Gainesville Resident

    Casual Observer :
    Unfortunately, this is nothing new at UMD. Anytime they win a championship in anything, this is how the students behave. Back when my now adult kids were looking at colleges, I told them early on that UMD was a non-starter “because they are constantly burning stuff and rioting.” They laughed at me, but I meant it.

    I’ve also noticed bad behavior by UMD students in the past after big championship games.

    Oddly enough, I hardly ever set foot on campus for my Master’s Degree – they televised classes live to my company at the time (IBM) and the only time I set foot on campus was to take my Master’s Degree written qualifying exam and also an oral exam by my professors.

    Anyway, still, I find some of the behavior in recent years by UMD students to be very unruly and just plain bad. It does give the school a bad reputation since this kind of behavior seems to happen once a year or so, whenever the school is in some championship sports event.

    Of course, as MH noted, adults have behaved poorly after other sporting events in other cities.

    Indiana U. – now who can forget Bobby Knight! I’m not surprised things were pretty bad during his days. He may have been a skilled coach – but his behavior on-court left a lot to be desired. He set a poor example for students, and not a surprise that sort of led to crazy behavior by students! I know Indiana U. eventually finally tired of his antics as a coach, and fired him after some incident where he got rather physical with one of his players – when he was disciplining that player for not doing something right.

  10. Some of this behavior is exacerbated by location. Look at the location of College Park. To me, that would be enough reason to steer clear. However, some is not equal to all. They need to behave.

    And IU sure doesn’t have that excuse. Bloomington is a self contained small college city, not part of a sprawling metropolis, like College Park that might questionablly be considered the ‘bad side of the tracks.’

    A good test to ask yourself is, how many UMD students have a burning desire to live in College Park as adults after they graduate? NONE. Ask UVA, IU, JMU, Mary Washington, Mary Baldwin grads the same question and you will get a different answer.

    Bobby Knight is a total horse’s ass IMHO. Talk about a bully.

  11. Gainesville Resident

    Yeah, College Park didn’t strike me as a great place (the area around the campus) the only time I ever set foot on the campus! In fact, as graduation was during the middle of the week – I didn’t even bother to attend it (for my Master’s Degree) and they sent me the diploma in the mail. The campus looked nice, but the town around it looked not very nice – and this was back in 1987!!! I can’t imagine it has improved since then….

  12. A brief piece out of today’s Washington Times:

    The 37,000-student university — a few miles outside of Washington, D.C. — has a reputation for rancorous behavior after basketball games, galvanized after a 2001 Final Four loss to Duke that was followed by a riot involving students burning stolen property on Fraternity Row.

    However, such an outburst has not occurred at Maryland, which won the 2002 NCAA basketball championship, in the past four years.

    University officials said Thursday students found to have taken part in the “riot-related behavior” will be suspended or expelled, even if they have not been convicted in a criminal court.

    “The post-game behavior of some students is inconsistent with the high standards … that we have set at the University of Maryland, College Park,” said Millree Williams, a university public affairs official. “We will not let the poor behavior of a few taint the good behavior of many.”

  13. It is a beautiful campus in a fairly run down area. UMD has a great academic reputation. Good basketball team. (football wasn’t so great last fall–young team ) There is a lot of spill over from the ‘hood on campus from what I can tell.

    Good for UMD taking a hard line on the unacceptable, thug-like behavior.

  14. Gainesville Resident

    Moon-howler :
    A brief piece out of today’s Washington Times:

    The 37,000-student university — a few miles outside of Washington, D.C. — has a reputation for rancorous behavior after basketball games, galvanized after a 2001 Final Four loss to Duke that was followed by a riot involving students burning stolen property on Fraternity Row.
    However, such an outburst has not occurred at Maryland, which won the 2002 NCAA basketball championship, in the past four years.
    University officials said Thursday students found to have taken part in the “riot-related behavior” will be suspended or expelled, even if they have not been convicted in a criminal court.
    “The post-game behavior of some students is inconsistent with the high standards … that we have set at the University of Maryland, College Park,” said Millree Williams, a university public affairs official. “We will not let the poor behavior of a few taint the good behavior of many.”

    As much as I don’t often find the Wash Post’s reporting accurate – I have to say that’s my perception too in what they say in the first paragraph – it does seem like there’s been several events in the last 10 years roughly of rowdy behavior! Not the image I would think UMD wants to project!

  15. Gainesville Resident

    Moon-howler :
    It is a beautiful campus in a fairly run down area. UMD has a great academic reputation. Good basketball team. (football wasn’t so great last fall–young team ) There is a lot of spill over from the ‘hood on campus from what I can tell.
    Good for UMD taking a hard line on the unacceptable, thug-like behavior.

    Indeed, even I (being not much of a sports person) know that UMD has great sports teams. Of course, it does indeed have a great academic reputation – my former employer would not have set up the program with them to televise classes live to us and let us get our MS degrees with them if they hadn’t had a great reputation academically. Their Electrical Engineering graduate department is ranked very very high nationwide.

  16. Gainesville Resident

    Actually, my mistake, that was a quote from Wash. Times. I misread that. I don’t read the Wash. Times so don’t know as much about it.

  17. I don’t read the Washington Times often either GR. I do peruse it for items of interest to post though.

  18. Gainesville Resident

    I should take a look at their website. I look at the Wash. Post website fairly often, so maybe should give the Wash. Times website a try every now and then. Then again, my wife makes me get the Sunday Wash. Post for the coupons. She could care less about the rest of the paper. I’ll look at it if I get the time, but often don’t really bother to look at the paper very much.

  19. You probably spend more on the Sunday Post than you get back in coupons.

    I dislike the Washington Times. I have not liked it since the Moonies bought it.

  20. Gainesville Resident

    I knew the Wash. Times was owned by the Moonies. I really have never looked at it that much.

    My wife thinks the coupons save her money. I’m sure you are right – it isn’t worth getting the Sunday Wash. Post just because of the coupons. But trying to convince my wife about that, is a losing battle.

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