n Your staff editorial about Councilor Murphy was on dead on (“Dear Councilor Murphy,” page 8, Oct. 19). As a 10-year Boston resident, a professor of media relations at Emerson College and a neighbor to Fenway Park, I’m quite familiar with the past incidents following major sporting events in Boston. From my first-hand experience with these events, I would argue that while most people on the streets following Patriots and Red Sox games are young adults, they are just as likely to be locals looking to get close to the action as they are to be students.
I did my undergraduate work at Boston University from 1993 to 1997 and I remember two distinct demographics that surprised me my freshmen year: One – the large number of students from New York; Two – the larger number of foreign students attending BU. I don’t know the exact percentage these two groups represent of BU’s total population today, but I’m sure those numbers haven’t changed that much since 1997. My argument here is that most BU New York fans and foreign students don’t really have an interest in celebrating Boston’s sports victories. In fact, most BU students don’t seem to get crazy over big games.
This was made apparent to me in 1995 when the Boston University men’s hockey team brought home the NCAA Championship (thank you Jack Parker and team ’95). On the eve of winning a national title, I was convinced that our campus was going to explode. Instead, I found only small pockets of celebration, which paled in comparison to the regular crowd that normally formed outside a former euro-club located on the same block of Commonwealth Avenue as T’s Pub. I think Councilor-At-Large Stephen Murphy might want to do a bit more research before pointing fingers at Boston University. Or perhaps he may even want to focus his efforts on a certain university, serviced by the E Line, known to have much higher numbers of in-state students than Boston University.
David Gerzof CAS ’97 Professor of media relations, Emerson College President, Big Fish Communications
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