Brown: Employ post-game realism

Damaging property, lighting fires in the middle of the street, making Pittsburgh into something… Damaging property, lighting fires in the middle of the street, making Pittsburgh into something akin to a sister city of Cairo for a night — whatever size the crowds become after the Super Bowl, ’Burgh residents would be wise to bunker down anyway.

While our collegiate sports teams in this city have a prestigious history of choking in big games, our professional ones don’t. That said, if history were to repeat itself, I expect that most students of this city’s universities will be flooding out into the streets in the name of celebration this Sunday night.

Three years ago at this time, I could probably be found in front of a computer looking at YouTube footage from the 2005 Super Bowl aftermath. I had not yet been indoctrinated into much of the culture here, but I learned from older students’ stories just how wild it got.

The Sunday night before the game in 2009, as I walked back from the Cathedral, I saw parking meters covered with black and gold “No Parking” signs. Their purpose was ancillary, mainly because there were no cars on Forbes Avenue.

Likely, everyone was already getting ready for the game.

I kept one of the signsthat had fallen on the ground as a souvenir. That would be the extent of my unruliness.

With parking control, the police might have had an idea of the events that were to unfold, but they were woefully unprepared for them. The streets flooding with 15,000 students and $150,000 worth of damage proved that.

I went back out at 2 a.m. to see hazmat and waste crews cleaning up everything from the wire frames of torched couches to broken glass and collapsed bus shelters.

After the crowds disperse, ask yourself if it was really worth it. It might be fun at the time to revel in victory, but witnessing night crews quietly attempting to restore some civility to the area is a bit depressing.

This year, some groups are resorting to social media campaigns to help convince Pitt students to celebrate responsibly. As to whether or not I am attending, I clicked “Maybe.”

In all honesty, there are more than a few reasons to change Oakland’s infrastructure, although I cannot condone eviscerating it. Perhaps your couch has bedbugs or some frat party-created stain on it that you’re hesitant to identify.

There’s a possibility that such a piece of furniture could spread disease, perhaps a new plague created by a combination of the fermented bacteria in alcohol coupled with the filth in the typical South Oakland abode.

Or say you’re anti-establishment and loathe politics in Pittsburgh. Since the city’s treasury is well into the negatives, it’s not exactly a high priority of lawmakers to have to pay police overtime for their services, especially after City Council narrowly escaped a state takeover.

I think that could spell the end to all of their political aspirations.

Let me have this time to say, however, that if you’re not planning on being the next Guy Fawkes and you don’t really want to instigate a second Boston Tea Party, both ideas are still very much illegal. And neither is really a proper way to celebrate a potential Steelers victory.

But I’m not about to ignore the possibility of destruction, as some Facebook groups and college deans would rather have us do. For relative newbies to off-campus living, I figure it’s best to be prepared. To help clear expected postgame chaos in Oakland, city police plan to close Forbes Avenue from Mckee Place to Bigelow Boulevard, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Since most of the brouhaha generally centers around Forbes Avenue, I’d highly recommend moving your cars deeper into South Oakland by the Boulevard, Oakland Square or Dawson Street — lest you find yourself with a mob of yinzers trying to roll over your new subcompact.

If you can’t move your cars out that way, finding a spot in North Oakland or Section M parking across the Boulevard for a few hours serves as a good alternative. If all else fails, cowboy diplomacy is always a good last resort.

However in that last case, be prepared to help rewrite state law, as Pennsylvania’s weak castle doctrine — deadly force cannot be used in Pennsylvania unless the actor is fearing for his life — might not be enough to protect you for protecting your property, inane as that sounds. That could take a while.

Further, when going out to check out the festivities, travel in groups. There’s nothing worse than having some piece of shrapnel like an uprooted road sign hit you without any of your friends being there to help you get home or to the hospital.

As much as it sounds like we’re a bunch of unruly heathens taking to the streets looking for an excuse to pillage — most of us aren’t. Last week, I purchased a Terrible Towel — my first piece of Steelers paraphernalia. I’m looking forward to the game.

But to believe the outcome of the Super Bowl will result in students circling around Forbes Avenue, holding hands and singing “We Are the World” instead of incinerating furniture is naïve. Instead, celebrating responsibly should entail being aware of what can happen and being equipped to handle it.

Most of Jacob’s family is rooting for the Packers. He isn’t. E-mail Jacob at jeb110@pitt.edu or visit his blog at thingsthatrhymewithcars.wordpress.com to find out why.