Talking Security
Conversation with National Football League Senior Director of Security Milt Ahlerich

by Curt Blakeney

Milt Ahlerich began his career as the National Football League’s chief security expert eight years ago. Before he was recruited by the NFL, he spent 25 years as an assistant director for the FBI. With the start of the 2003 NFL season, stadium security takes on heightened importance. Any time you cram 65,000 fans into a stadium, their safety becomes paramount, putting Ahlerich at the forefront of the league’s security efforts.

Since 9/11, stadiums around the country instituted new security measures. Tight restrictions were placed on items fans could carry into the stadium, new parameters for parking were put in place, and airspace over stadiums was restricted on game day. Ahlerich spends each offseason reviewing the league’s security procedures and he’ll spend the next five months implementing procedures to ensure the safety of fans, players and officials. According to Ahlerich, security is the NFL’s “No. 1 priority.” Public Venue Security (PVS) discussed stadium security with Ahlerich:

PVS: Tell us about your background.

Ahlerich: With the FBI, I worked through the ranks from a street agent and supervisor to one of the 10 highest ranking people in the organization. I ran field offices, as well as major divisions at FBI headquarters my last 10 years on the job. I was formally chief of public affairs and congressional affairs for the FBI. In 1995, I was hired by the National Football League. My responsibilities include a full range of asset protection for the NFL, including human resources, facilities protection, due diligence on business relationships that the NFL might want to enter into, actual investigations of misconduct or fraud perpetrated against the National Football League, and special event security, which includes the Super Bowl, Pro Bowl and championship games. I’m also responsible for giving assistance and advice to all of our facility managers in connection with facility security for the venues where the NFL plays its games.

PVS: Stadium security has become a key issue lately. How do you coordinate security with the different teams?

Ahlerich: The facilities where we play our games are controlled in a variety of different ways. Some are owned by the team owners and their families; some are publicly- owned facilities leased to the owners; some are leased only for game day; or some are leased for complete operation. The degree of control that the NFL owners have over the facility varies substantially. The commissioner [Paul Tagliabue] established a task force of executives inside and outside the National Football League. A task force that I chaired wrote best practices for security for NFL stadiums and domes. These set of practices are sent to the teams and facility managers. We strongly recommend the implementation of these best practices to the highest degree possible. They focus on not only game-day operations, but non game-day operations, recognizing if we lose a facility on Thursday before the game, and it is not available for us on Sunday, that is harmful to our business model.

The manner we communicate and how we’ve attempted to get the best practices in compliance is pretty elaborate. We’ve employed audits, an outside security firm that has performed reviews of every stadium, and we’ve worked individually with every stadium throughout the country to get as high a level of compliance as possible. The manner in which we communicate to our facility managers and team security executives is through conference calls from my office to the teams and facilities. We probably have 100 people on the conference call. We’ll go over the hot-button issues where we’ve experienced problems. We’ve had two follow-up training sessions, where we pull facility managers, security executives and team executives into one private meeting for two days to discuss the nature of threats, the best practices compliance, and how to address potential threats.

PVS: What has the NFL learned since 9/11 in terms of security?

Ahlerich: The biggest thing we’ve learned is how terrific our fans are in terms of accepting additional security measures, being cooperative with new security measures, and appreciating these extra measures. The gripes we’ve seen have been few, and on the rare occasions where stadium security was inconsistent. “Hey, you searched him, why didn’t you search her?” or “They didn’t search me good enough. “Hey, I just walked in. I could have had something on me.” Not to say that there has not been a rare occasion where someone thought the screening was uncomfortable, but that has been very rare. And we appreciate that. The lesson is to train your security personnel and be sure they’re consistent. Screening will not deter fans from coming to the games. They want to feel safe. And they will be safe.

PVS: Every few years, new stadiums are built. Are you discussing security issues with the stadium designers?

Ahlerich: There are two new stadiums coming online this year: Chicago and Philadelphia. The principal responsibility of the security rests with the city and the team. But we’ve been actively involved with those locations to ensure that the best practices that we’ve recommended are implemented to the highest degree possible.

We’ve spoken with architecture firms about engineering ideas as it relates to security. For instance, in places like Philadelphia’s new stadium, you can build a camera system and wiring right into the structure and configure your gates and checkpoints on paper during the design phase — rather than these things being an afterthought.

PVS: The showcase game is the Super Bowl. Did you deem the security efforts in San Diego a success?

Ahlerich: Yes, people talked about it being a great football game, not about the security after they got inside. All week long, security was one of the principal stories. We want security to be like the heating and air conditioning. You know it’s there, but you don’t think about it. It’s in the background, and that’s the way we want it to be.

PVS: Do you communicate with directors of security from some of the other professional leagues, like Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association?

Ahlerich: Absolutely. We’re all here in New York and we’re all friends. We get together for lunch from time to time. Not very many days go by where I’m not on the telephone with one of those guys. Some of the issues are the same. And certainly when we’re talking about player issues, there’s no difference between one of our players and one of theirs. In terms of facility security, though, we focus on our own fans and our own game operations. I’m more than willing to share with the other leagues how we operate, and they’ve been willing to share things with me. To the extent it has an application to what we’re doing, I’m always willing to learn from the other guy.

PVS: Since 9/11, there have been extra security measures implemented at stadiums. Is that something fans can expect to see in the future?

Ahlerich: In the NFL, fans certainly will be expected to go through the similar security screens they went through the last two years. We’ve urged stadiums and teams not to let complacency seep into the operations of our games. Fans can expect those security screens will be in place, though they vary from stadium to stadium. It’s a little different in Miami — where people are wearing tank tops — than it is in Green Bay, where people are wearing heavy outer garments.

Fans should come to the games, arrive a little early and bring patience. They will be urged to take minimal items into the stadium. The screening process cannot be relaxed. Fans should not try to rush into the stadium last minute. You could not get away with it last year, and they won’t this year either. Our fans are important to us, and we’re putting in extra staff on our gate screening to do everything we can to accommodate them. First and foremost, we’re going to keep fans safe before we entertain them.

PVS: What is your outlook on the safety of NFL stadiums?

Ahlerich: We take very aggressive, comprehensive steps to be sure that measures are in place to protect our facilities. We’ve done a very good job of improving the security as a league at our venues and sites in the past two-and-ahalf years. There are places where we have more work to do, but overall I’ve been impressed with the results. It all starts with the commissioner, who puts his backing behind the efforts. And that has made my job so much easier.