Last Saturday was probably the best National Marquette Day in my four years at the university. The unseasonably warm weather gave the festivities a block party vibe, with hundreds of students taking to the streets to celebrate. Although I didn’t really notice at the time, this also led to issues.
It wasn’t until 6 a.m. the next morning while walking back to my apartment that this finally hit me. I walked by two men in Marquette jackets filling up black trash bags with hundreds of cans and bottles that littered the streets and walkways along Wisconsin Avenue.
I was among the hundreds of students who gathered in the area around 19th and Kilbourn before the game and I saw firsthand the smashed bottles in the street, the tilted over trashcans and vomit in the bushes. I saw people boo and flip off Marquette University Police Department, who weren’t even acting on the literally hundreds of open container violations in front of them. They were just trying to keep the roads clear and keep us safe.
I think it’s easy to forget that we don’t live among only other students. There are people with families, mortgages and full-time jobs who simply are trying their lives. I saw one student relieve himself at the corner of an apartment building and a wooden fence. A middle-aged man holding a newborn baby appeared at the window next to the student and yelled at him to go away.
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We often don’t think about how our actions affect others, especially in large groups and especially when drinking. We can have fun and get a little drunk without making everyone else who lives around campus miserable.
Even if you argue that it’s just a few students causing some problems, which it assuredly was not, these actions still reinforce the stereotype that all Marquette students are privileged and self-absorbed.
At a Jesuit university, one of the things we like to tout is that we exist to serve the community surrounding us, not the other way around. Although we sometimes fail to meet this ideal administratively, last Saturday was all on us students. It’s not just about treating our neighbors and our university with respect, it’s about respecting the people who are out at 6 a.m., not because they were celebrating a win the night before, but because it’s their jobs to make the school look nice for us.
This respect should extend to the game itself. I mean, come on, instead of yelling “F— (opponent)” and “Sucks” during the opposing team’s lineup announcement, can’t we come up with something at least a little more clever? I’m not saying the student section needs to be a family-friendly environment, just that we should choose carefully how we want other fans to remember us and how we want them to think of Marquette.
So next time you’re out drinking in public, remember that like it or not, you represent your school. If you act like a degenerate, that’s exactly how other people will remember all of us. “We Are Marquette” is not just some slogan, it’s a fact.
Joe Smat • Feb 22, 2017 at 2:06 pm
Takes a lot of guts and smarts to write this article.