During a normal football game, four or five DePauw Public Safety officers roam the campus looking for inappropriate or illegal behavior. At the Monon Bell game, over 55 officers will patrol Blackstock Stadium and the surrounding area.
Director of Public Safety Angie Nally said that the additional security officers will cost DePauw approximately $15-17, 000.
Off-duty officers from the Greencastle Police Department, Contemporary Services Corporation, T.L. Enterprises and DePauw Public Safety will be on duty over the weekend monitoring the game and the campus.
Nally said there will be off-duty officers patrolling the game and tailgate area. Nally also said the university hopes to offset the cost of security with parking fees in the Blackstock parking lot.
"There are a couple of different focuses that we have to think about: we have to think about traffic control, we have to think about crowd control, we have to think about emergency e-graphs in case there is an emergency in the game, we have to think about behavior in the tailgate areas so each one of these people are assigned to different functions within the totality of this event," Nally said. "It's more than just a football game."
Atheltic Director Page Cotton agreed that security is a priority for the Monon Bell game, especially as the Wabash-DePauw rivalry presents extra risk.
"It's very important to have extra security at this game," Cotton said. "Everybody is really charged up and as much as we worked to separate the crowd, safety is our first and main concern. We want to provide an environment that is safe for everybody so we take some steps to make sure we have as safe an environment as we can."
Cotton said he hopes that students enjoy the game, though it presents a greater potential for violence than other football games.
"At the same time, we want people to have a good time," Cotton said. "We also want to make sure, from a liability standpoint, that the environment is safe."
Both Nally and Cotton said that the security officers will try to separate fans based on school in order to prevent conflict.
"We have the Wabash fans and the DePauw fans separated out for tailgating so that they're not right next to each other," Cotton said. "We found that is a good way for people to enjoy the tailgating festivities which has become a American sports icon over the years."
Nally said that this mentality has guided Public Safety's actions since the 1990s, which is when safety of both sets of fans became increasingly problematic.