COLUMBUS
OhioWillie Young can name almost any high school mascot in Ohio.
Big Walnut in central Ohio? The Eagles. Centerville near Dayton? The Elks. Strongsville, southwest of Cleveland? The Mustangs.
It’s a nifty habit Young uses as an icebreaker with Ohio State University students. But it’s not a trivial pursuit.
Young’s job is to keep post-football game beer blasts in the neighborhoods around Ohio State, the country’s largest campus at 52,568 students, from tripping the switch from parties to riots.
The director of off-campus student services, Young was on the scene the day after a party that started on Sept. 15 got out of hand early the next morning, talking to off-campus residents to prevent a repeat performance.
At the party dubbed “15 on the 15th” that’s 15 as in kegs of beer, 165 12-ounce cups to a keg police faced a crowd of more than 300 “yelling, screaming, throwing objects, and fighting,” according to a Columbus police description of the event.
Students “want to have a good time, and they don’t set out as a rule to get in trouble, but sometimes they just find that they cannot control the number of people that come to their parties,” Young says.
