JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Fans making their way along a path behind Lane Stadium pass trash left behind by tailgaters.

JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Virginia Tech alumni and students play flip cup as they tailgate before the home football game against Boston College last month. On game days in Blacksburg, police send extra officers to patrol tailgating hot spots and enforce liquor laws.

MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

Andrew Chubb (left) tries to hit an airborne beer can with a plastic bat after it is thrown by Kevin Burnett. The college friends were playing a game of "Dizzy Ball" in a field on Chicken Hill before the Virginia Tech football spring game in April. "Dizzy Ball" consisted of filling the plastic bat with beer, downing it, spinning around nine times with the end of the bat on the ground, and then hitting a beer can with the bat.

BLACKSBURG -- You see them on Saturday and Sunday mornings -- and sometimes on Fridays after a Thursday night Hokie home game.

They stand or sit on the curb outside the courthouse in Christiansburg, shabby and forlorn after a night in the Montgomery County jail's drunk tank.

They are the DIPs, short for "drunk in public" arrestees, who have run afoul of that and other liquor laws.

Many of them were arrested in Blacksburg. In addition to drunk in public, some have been charged with underage possession of alcohol.

Some caused a disturbance at Lane Stadium. If they didn't leave quietly when asked, they left handcuffed in the back of a police van.

Others were picked up at or around tailgating parties held on lawns and in parking lots on campus and throughout Blacksburg.

A few went to jail after postgame revelry at downtown bars or off-campus parties.

All will end up in court.

Many will attend alcohol classes and do community service through the Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program. Tech students will likely face sanction by the Office of Student Conduct under the university's "three strikes" policy.

Some studies have shown that college football may give a slight boost to the local economy and tax base, although results are mixed. Winning college teams also often boost student applications and excite alumni, who may donate to their alma maters.

But there is a societal cost to the alcohol culture surrounding college football.

Sometimes the price is a life.

Study: Football boosts underage, binge drinking

On Sept. 19, 2004, Tech student Tom Hauser died of apparent alcohol poisoning on the floor of his friends' apartment in Blacksburg's Houston-Harrell neighborhood, a popular tailgating spot adjacent to Lane Stadium.

According to police reports at the time, the 23-year-old engineering student passed out after a night of heavy drinking at downtown bars following Tech's football game against Duke.

He never woke up.

Every year, about 1,700 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related injuries, including motor vehicle crashes, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Half of those are under 21.

Furthermore, football culture has been shown to encourage underage and binge drinking and been implicated in an increase in violent crimes, according to a survey of crime data from the host communities of Division I-A schools, including Blacksburg. The study was published in February 2009 in the Journal of Sports Economics.

And while universities such as Tech have implemented wide-ranging education programs and strict penalties for violations, binge drinking and associated problems continue.

One response has been the Amethyst Initiative, spearheaded by former Middlebury College President John McCardell and signed by Tech President Charles Steger and more than 130 other college presidents.

Supporters of the initiative argue that raising the legal drinking age to 21 has driven underage drinkers underground and robbed them of the chance to learn moderation in regulated settings such as bars. They advocate for a national debate and the lifting of federal funding penalties on states that set their drinking ages below 21.

But powerhouse public health and safety groups, such as the American Medical Association and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, have lined up against the initiative.

University of Florida epidemiologist Alexander Wagenaar has studied the drinking age and college drinking for more than 30 years.

He calls many of the initiative's arguments disingenuous and says they are scientifically insupportable.

The 21+ drinking age has reduced drunken driving and has been shown in study after study since the 1970s to save about 1,000 lives every year, Wagenaar said.

The drinking age was never meant to reduce binge drinking, he said.

But, according to Wagenaar, science does point to a way to curb binge drinking and its consequences: raise taxes on alcohol.

Law enforcement targets risky behavior at games

"I thought I'd just have one more for the road," said James Crawford, 19, after police cited him for underage possession of alcohol in Blacksburg's Houston-Harrell neighborhood.

Police have identified Houston-Harrell as one of several tailgating hot spots in need of intensive alcohol enforcement during home games, Blacksburg Chief Kim Crannis said.

"ABC teams" -- patrol officers assigned to enforce liquor laws -- are sent out on game days to these areas. Regular patrol officers are also on duty throughout the town.

About a dozen additional Blacksburg officers help provide security in the stadium, Crannis said.

About 200 officers from more than a dozen local law enforcement agencies patrol the stadium during every home game, Tech police Capt. Joey Albert said.

Blacksburg officer Tommy Sarver, on ABC patrol for the Oct. 29 game against North Carolina, cited Crawford for underage possession after he dropped his Bud Light in the street.

"Look, this encourages underage drinking," Crawford said, pointing to the orange-and-maroon-striped Bud Light can. "It's Hokie football."

Tech, like several other universities across the country in August, protested the Bud Light "Team Pride" cans made to appeal to college football fans. The cans are not licensed by the universities, but are decorated with team colors. Tech, "like most large American schools, struggles with student binge drinking," university spokesman Larry Hincker wrote in an Aug. 27 letter to Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Bud Light.

"Dropping orange and maroon beer cans into the small town of Blacksburg is akin to an attractive nuisance. You must know that college students, of age or under age, will flock to them."

In a return letter, Anheuser-Busch attorney Scott Miller promised the "Fan Cans" would be pulled from the Blacksburg market.

But 24-packs priced at $14.99 were still being manufactured in October and were available last week at the Kroger store in the Gables Shopping Center.

Gables, located on the town's southern gateway, is a nexus of alcohol sales on game days.

In addition to Kroger's extensive wine, beer and malt beverage selection, tailgaters can shop at the locally-owned Vintage Cellar wine and beer shop and at one of the state's highest-volume ABC stores.

According to Virginia records, the South Main Street ABC store is one of the top 10 stores in the state by both gross sales and gallons of liquor sold. That ranking puts it in the company of stores in the state's largest cities, such as Richmond and Virginia Beach. The state operates 300 ABC stores.

But no matter where the alcohol is purchased, those who deal with the consequences of overindulgence say the makers of alcoholic beverages and even local bars have made it easy to binge drink, whether or not revelers are tailgating.

Some 83 percent of college students drink, and 41 percent report drinking five or more drinks at one sitting, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

About 800 Tech and Radford University students cited by local police for underage possession go through the state's Alcohol Safety Action Program in Christiansburg each year, director Susan Marchon said.

The courts often offer reduced penalties if offenders agree to attend VASAP classes, and sometimes counseling for alcohol abuse.

"We see more kids with drinking problems than you might think," she said.

And, "we see more alcohol-related charges coming out of football games than any other sport. It's not the fault of football; it's just the social expectation," Marchon said.

In fact, a study of tailgating behaviors at Tech games done by Steven Clarke, director of Tech's Alcohol Abuse Prevention Center, and his staff from 2002-06 found that some 48 percent of tailgaters who said they intended to drive after the game registered blood-alcohol content levels of .05 or higher, putting them at risk for arrest for driving under the influence. A driver 21 or older is considered legally intoxicated at .08.

Furthermore, on average Tech students who tailgated became more intoxicated than alumni, the study found.

And the later the kickoff, the more intoxicated tailgaters became.

Raising alcohol's price could reduce deaths

"They had dollar PBRs downtown," Travis Austin Hughes, 24, lamented to Blacksburg police, referring to Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

Officers arrested him after the UNC game for driving his Ford 150 with a blood-alcohol content more than twice the legal limit. When asked how many drinks he'd had, Hughes couldn't remember.

According to ABC records, more than a dozen restaurants in downtown Blacksburg are licensed to sell beer, wine and mixed drinks.

Low pricing of alcohol at the establishments and the mixing of "enhanced" alcoholic drinks is a major problem in Blacksburg, Clarke said.

A mixed beverage called "The Rail" sold at Top of the Stairs restaurant and bar on College Avenue is equivalent to 6.5 standard drinks of alcohol, Clarke said.

"No one can drink that drink and not become intoxicated," he said.

A "standard drink" in this case is 0.5 ounces of pure alcohol. That amount is found in a "shot" of 80 proof spirits, one 12-ounce beer or 4 ounces of wine.

Clarke said he wonders if these super-alcoholic drinks are legal to sell under current state statutes, which limit the number of drinks bartenders may serve to any patron at one time.

Other drinks of concern include the large Long Island iced tea served at Sharkey's and the jumbo margarita served at El Rodeo, Clarke said.

At 12 percent alcohol by volume, one 23.5-ounce can of "MaxLive" -- one of many popular malt liquor-spiked energy drinks available at grocery and convenience stores -- is roughly equal to five standard drinks of alcohol, Clarke said. One MaxLive retails at Kroger for $2.29.

This low pricing directly contributes to binge drinking, said Wagenaar, the epidemiologist.

It's simple economics: The lower the price, the more people buy, he said.

Furthermore, economists have found that, after accounting for inflation and other variables, alcohol is cheaper today than in the 1950s, Wagenaar said.

One of the easiest ways to increase the price of alcohol is to raise taxes on it, according to a study co-authored by Wagenaar and published this year. The study found that one alcohol tax increase in Alaska resulted in a 29 percent reduction in alcohol-related deaths. A second increase reduced the death rate by a further 11 percent, the study stated.

Some researchers have found that pricing of alcohol can be particularly effective in reducing consumption among college students and young adults, whose incomes are generally lower than that of older populations, the study stated.

In a capitalist system, "the people who sell the products have an incentive to sell more. You can't really fault them," Wagenaar said.

But, he said, alcohol is "a hazardous product, and it's appropriate to be regulated in a way that reduces the effects on our communities."

Data delivery editor Matt Chittum contributed to this report.