“It’s no fairy tale. ‘Once Upon a Homecoming’ and all of its crappy festivities has been officially rescheduled to occur in Madison, Wis. — some 250 miles away … With the overlap between our homecoming and the annual Wisconsin Halloween bash, the Student Activities Office decided to relocate the parade, competitions, and royalty coronation to our rival state.”
These words made up the leading paragraphs of University of Minnesota-Twin Cities student Mat Koehler’s opinion piece titled “University Homecoming Moving to Madison,” which ran in The Minnesota Daily Oct. 28.
As Koehler proceeded to point out, the flood of Minnesota students invading the insanity-clad streets of Madison was sure to steal Gophers away from the university’s Homecoming festivities, making a sarcastic estimate that 98 percent of the student body would make the trek south.
In reality, though, Koehler believes that only 5 to 6 percent of the student population traveled to Madison, but nonetheless estimates that the “large chunk” was comprised of about 3,000 people.
Indeed, the hordes of Minnesota visitors made their mark on the Madison Halloween festivities.
As City Council President and Alderman Mike Verveer, District 8, said, 90 percent of the arrests made Friday night were Minnesota residents.
“It’s unacceptable. They gave a black eye to all the out-of-town revelers,” he said. “As is the case, the vast majority who draw cops’ attention tends to be yahoos from out of town.”
Verveer added that more than 100,000 people partook in Halloween festivities over the weekend, and he believes that 99 percent of the crowds caused no problems and were responsible. The remaining 1 percent, however, he feels was largely made up of Minnesota residents.
“This means that Minnesota people are more hardcore in general. That obviously makes a big statement,” Koehler said, adding that students came to Madison free of responsibilities — an idea he feels may have sparked unruly behavior.
Verveer also holds this 1 percent partially responsible for the disturbances that revolved around the 500 block of State Street. He attributes this to Minnesota students who were staying in the University Inn and were drawing attention to themselves through open windows and encouraging crowds to hang around the area. He feels this then led to students throwing objects up to the students in their windows.
“We didn’t seem to have trouble here, so I don’t understand what happened in Madison to change that. I guess many people went there with the intention of it being crazy and just went too far with it,” U of M freshman Jenny Manogue said.
Manogue stayed in Minnesota for the weekend and said the football game helped to retain a lot of students on campus. She was surprised by the large number of students at the game but nonetheless noticed a marked emptiness on campus over the weekend.
“The dorms felt completely empty compared to normal, and when we went out there were very few parties. It felt as though no one needed to throw parties because no one was there.”
In addition to Minnesota residents, Verveer said he ran into many out-of-state visitors, with some college students coming from as far as Iowa and Missouri.
“[Halloween] has been a draw for college students throughout the Midwest. I think part of it could be that our State Street reputation has become larger than life since the riots,” he said. “It just raises the profile of the whole event.”
Despite the scale of the event, Verveer thinks University of Wisconsin students took on the festivities responsibly and is pleased with their behavior.
A representative from the UW Dean of Students Office was at the arrest processing station to deal with disorderly UW students.
