If you were to be breathalyzed upon entry to a school game, would you still go? While breathalyzing is not something that the administration is planning on implementing, the idea of it becomes something interesting — and perhaps scary — to think about. Social events such as sports games often enhance the drinking culture, but it is important to consider whether the reason for showing up is community and school spirit or simply the promise of alcohol.

For a lot of students on the island, football season is a highlight of the start of school. As we transition into winter and spring, other sports such as basketball and lacrosse fill the gap that the end of football leaves us. These sporting events are often unofficially publicized as opportunities to drink that are not just found in parties, as there is a cycle to drinking culture specifically connected to sporting events that is difficult to break.

“If you breathalyze, it would prevent kids from coming in under the influence, which I mentioned way back when I first started here in the early 2000s,” Kelly John-Lewis, MIHS’ security liaison said. “The response from the kids that I talked to was that they just wouldn’t go to the sports games and that was kind of sad to hear.”

“I find it sad that [breathalyzing students] would prevent them from going to root on their classmates and to root on their school, that they couldn’t do it sober,” MIHS Principal Nick Wold said. “I would ask that student, ‘how connected are you to your vices if you are unable to go to a sporting contest or school dance without having a buzz?’”

It comes down to the student to consider how much alcohol affects their experience at social events such as sporting games, events supposed to bring the entire school community together to cheer one another on. It is nearly impossible for the school and administrative team to control every student who shows up and pin down everyone who is drinking, so it is up to each individual to be responsible. There are, however, standard practices when it comes to encountering a student seemingly under the influence of alcohol or drugs that the administration carries out routinely.

“At football games, there are so many kids, so to know what they’re doing before they come into a game … and what they bring into a game is almost impossible to stop,” John-Lewis said. “But it’s a problem and we have a few every game that we have to deal with for that reason.”

“We know that there [are] some people that like to pre-funk and hang out and do these things beforehand and then try and show up to the games and be a little rowdy,” Wold said. “When we see anybody that has the appearance of intoxication we take them from the event and bring them back into our administrative offices. We’ll lead them through a series of questions and call the police to then go through the next series of events. We also call their family [to] pick them up. So that is a pretty standard practice for us, this has happened this year at sporting events and it’ll continue to happen this year.”

One of the many reasons alcohol at games can be bad is the behavior that may result from intoxication. It is important to be respectful at all times and positively represent MIHS. Visiting schools, parents, students and communities in general should see MIHS as a positive place to come to during sporting events!

“I don’t want [the community at] our school to assume that [students] are doing those things,” Wold said. “I’d like to hope that our students can come to a contest and not feel like they need to get torn up before it. The vast majority of our students are doing the healthy things, the right things; it just happens to be glamorized that these things are popular.”

The mindset should not be related to drinking but rather to showing up for peers and being a part of our positive school spirit. My goal in writing this is to encourage you to remain respectful and conscious of your effect on the community with every decision and consider what drives you to attend social events like sports games.

Beyond the typical dangers of drinking, such as injuries or drunk driving, as a student body, we should be positively representing our school. When under the influence of drugs or alcohol, it is easy to be louder, which may lead to name-calling or disrespectful comments toward other people or other teams.

“Unfortunately, I have seen the drinking and alcohol culture at some games,” Steve Miller, a teacher in the Bellevue School District, said. “I attended a [nearby] high school soccer game where the students were unbelievably rude and disrespectful, and they were clearly under the influence. I was quite disappointed in the lack of effort by their high school administration to tamp down on the negative behavior, including derogatory slurs yelled from the stands at the players of the other team, and I had students playing on both teams.”

Miller’s experiences show that this is not an issue strictly confined to this school or high school in general, as similar sporting game culture exists throughout college and professional sports as well; these are learned behaviors that become more and more normalized.

“If you look at the sporting environment where you have professional teams and you look at the crowds, there are adults with a high intake of alcohol and a lot of inappropriateness at games which I’ve worked at,” John-Lewis said. “There have been tons of people who were fighting, who were using inappropriate language, men going into women’s bathrooms.”

This simply shows that there is a cycle to drinking culture, specifically connected to sporting events, that is difficult to break. According to the National Library of Medicine, “Students who self-identify as sports fans endorse higher rates of heavy drinking compared to other students.”

“At football games, there are so many kids, so to know what they’re doing before they come into a game … and what they bring into a game is almost impossible to stop,” John-Lewis said. “But it’s a problem and we have a few every game that we have to deal with for that reason.”

As a high school student, it is important to think about how your actions affect the community surrounding you and to show up for your school and classmates. It is nearly impossible for the school and administrative team to control every student who shows up and pin down everyone participating in these activities, so it is up to every individual to be responsible. There are, however, standard practices if it comes to encountering a student seemingly under the influence of alcohol or drugs that the administration takes routinely.