Alcohol may be the only thing to distract ASU football fans from the team's losing record this season, but President Michael Crow said he would not allow beer and wine to be served inside the stadium.
"We have great games that are fun and entertaining, and crowd behavior is exceptional," he said.
Those games have led the team to a 3-2 record at the stadium this year and a 4-7 record overall.
Tom Collins, a senior associate athletic director with ASU, said the athletic department requested last semester that beer and wine could be served in some Sun Devil Stadium suites. But in Washington, one special interest group is working to fight the national influence of alcohol on college sports.
George Hacker, director of the Alcohol Policies Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, released comments on Wednesday, calling for the end of all alcohol advertising on televised college sports events.
Hacker said that the project is asking college and university officials to make "The College Commitment" by getting rid of alcohol advertising on local broadcasts of their games and by working within their athletic conferences and in the NCAA to eliminate alcohol ads there, too.
The project primarily focuses on stopping underage drinking, which Hacker said can start as early as age 13. But he said other alcohol problems remain.
His message to American universities: Stop handicapping your own efforts to reduce alcohol problems on campus.
Brandon Goad, president of the Undergraduate Student Government, said the sale and consumption of alcohol to those of legal age is acceptable. But, he added, "by no means am I saying we should have alcohol sales to the general public at football games."
With its proposal to serve alcoholic beverages, the athletic department thought it could provide an additional service to the companies that rent out the suites and support Sun Devil athletics, Collins said.
"The suite market in this town is pretty competitive," he added.
Collins said that other arenas have suites that offer beer and wine options, including Bank One Ballpark, America West Arena, Dodge Theatre and the new Arizona Cardinals stadium being built in Glendale.
But Crow said the spring proposal did not convince him of the need for alcoholic beverages in the stadium.
"Alcohol has not been available in the past, and there is no compelling reason to change that," he said.
Goad said that beer and wine regularly are available elsewhere on campus.
"I know that beer and wine are available in other areas of campus; for example, in the University Club you can have beer or wine as part of your meal," he said. "In the MU [Memorial Union], Sodexho offers beer and wine as part of their dining to cater an event.
"It doesn't seem like an overextension of that idea that in some areas of campus, beer and wine are acceptable," Goad added.
Reach the reporter at michael.miklofsky@asu.edu.
