Remember the 19 people who were treated for injuries from the field storm after the UVA Football win over Florida State? The University of Virginia apparently doesn’t.
I got an email over the weekend from a parent of one of the students who was seriously injured, and has a “long road to recovery.”
The parent said the family has reached out to the University about their student’s injuries, and said the school hasn’t responded.
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“I truly believe this situation deserves attention and meaningful change so that no other family has to go through this,” the parent wrote to me in an email.
We’re talking more than five weeks now since the Sept. 26 game, and the field storm, for which UVA Athletics was fined a nominal $50,000 by the ACC, for failing to maintain proper security.
I call the $50,000 fine nominal because otherwise, the images of the rush that have been splayed all over the interwebs and broadcast TV have earned the University of Virginia untold millions of dollars in free publicity.
Video: The field storm as it happened
I reached out to the University to inquire, specifically, about the alleged lack of contact from UVA to the parent who had emailed me, saying that I would “like to get a response from the University on the matter,” and that “I would hope that UVA would be responsive to the concerns of parents and students involved in this.”
The word I got back from a UVA spokesperson was far, far, far below what I would expect.
“Thank you for reaching out. The University takes seriously and responds to all parent concerns for student safety and welfare,” the response to me began, and continued with a cut-and-paste of the general message that UVA shared last month “to remind fans of safe practices to take when attending sporting events, to wish those who were injured at the FSU game a speedy recovery, and to remind students of wellness resources available to them.”
That was it – the height of tone-deafness, considering.
The lack of anything more specific from the school either publicly to me, as a media member, or privately, to parents of an injured student, could just be a recognition of the legal liability from this situation.
The screenshot that I’m using here – from a video that I shot from the press box as the scene unfolded live – shows us that there were no security personnel stationed in front of the group of students on The Hill to the west side of the goalpost, and I counted one guy behind the goalpost, and a group of four or five in the corner on the east side.
A football field is 160 feet wide, from sideline to sideline, which, in this case, was left almost entirely unprotected.
Watching the final few minutes of game action from the press box, it was obvious that fans on The Hill were planning a field storm – they began pressing down toward the bottom of The Hill at the end of regulation, with Virginia holding a 35-28 lead, and preparing to close the game out, before FSU extended the game with a tying TD on a fourth-and-goal with 36 seconds left.
This would seem to have been more than enough time to have radioed in help from the security personnel on the premises to assist in other areas to try to keep the field safe – and fans intending to rush the field safe from themselves.
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I submitted a public-records request to the University to try to learn more about the security plan in effect for UVA Football home gamedays, and the response of athletics department officials to the Sept. 26 incident, including Carla Williams, the athletics director, but the school used “applicable public safety exemptions” in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to withhold that information from me.
I had fully expected to be denied that access.
I will note that, there was a noticeable increase in the presence of security personnel for the next home game on the schedule, the Oct. 18 contest with Washington State.
I didn’t think to snap a photo, but I did observe, from the press box, that what appeared to be a group of Virginia State Police troopers were stationed from sideline to sideline.
This wasn’t done on Sept. 26, with consequences that at least one student that I know of will be dealing with for some time.
Video: The unseen side of the UVA Florida State field storm
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Chris Graham
