UConn Ready For Championship Celebrations

STORRS, CT - The celebrations are not what they used to be, but authorities at the University of Connecticut are ready for any shenanigans that spill onto campus and into the night after the woman's basketball national title game.

"We will have a presence on campus," UConn deputy police chief Hans Rhynhart said last week while final preparations for another Husky national championship were being made. "We were prepared for the women to go deep into the tournament and we will have extra patrols on duty after the championship game."

And that means both uniformed officers in marked cars, officers in unmarked cars and plainclothes officers roaming campus.

"We just want everyone to be safe," Rhynhat said. "We want everyone to have fun, but we want to emphasize safety and making smart decisions."

The plainclothes strategy emerged a couple of years ago during the annual move-in weekend. It is designed to mingle with the students and prevent problems before they need to be reacted to, Rhynhart said.

"But we are ready for anything," he said.

The UConn emergency operations center will be activated to monitor the night's activities, UConn Deputy Spokesman Tom Breen said.

Back in the 1990s, before anyone imagined that the UConn men's hoop team would have four national championships and the women would venture into double-digits in that department, the revelry was wild and extensive damage was not uncommon around campus, Rhynhart said.

But things have mellowed.

"You win that many and the titles become more common and that is reflected in the celebrations," he said.