Friday will officially mark the 15th anniversary of Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day, and all signs point to the tradition continuing through 2011. While campus clothing stores furiously produce green shirt after green shirt for Friday, University and local police ready themselves to keep the rowdy festivities under control.

Some students urge the campus community to remain safe and make educated decisions, while others talk up “kegs and eggs” parties and stock up on party supplies.

Then, of course, there is the Facebook page that boasts over 23,000 people who say they are attending the campus “holiday.”

But the event that causes headaches for the community’s local authorities — and eventually headaches for its students — began long before there was Facebook, back in 1996.

Back then, St. Patrick’s Day typically fell during the University’s spring break. Scott Cochrane, who owns a number of local bars such as The Red Lion and The Clybourne, came up with “Unofficial” St. Patrick’s Day to allow students to celebrate the holiday while on campus.

Justin Breen, ‘99 alumnus, was a freshman for the very first Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day. He said initially, it was not quite as crazy as it has become in subsequent years.

“I don’t remember it being a chaotic mess at first,” Breen said. “Greek reunion in the summertime seemed to be a bigger event when I went to school.”

However, Breen said he did recollect some “classic” Unofficial experiences. He mentioned the green beer that has become synonymous with anything St. Patrick’s Day. He also remembered drinking “Irish coffee” at 8 a.m. and making it to class later that day.

“Not one of my prouder moments,” he said.

Although Unofficial may not have been quite so large that first year, University Police Lieutenant Skip Frost said it caught local authorities largely off-guard and left them asking, “What is going on today?”

“There was no social media. There really wasn’t that much advertisement,” Frost said. “The next thing you know, we have bars open at 7 a.m. and lines out the door on a Friday.”

Frost said during the first couple of years, the event was scheduled during the same day as the Engineering Open House, which was distressing for the University.

“We have our best and brightest on campus who we’re trying to attract — the future astronauts — and they’re walking through puddles of green puke,” Frost said. “We weren’t too happy about that.”

After the first few years, Frost said the celebration expanded to the point where students began coming to class intoxicated. It was at that point, he said, that the University and the cities of Champaign and Urbana began to clamp down.

In 2003, security guards were placed in University buildings to ensure students did not bring alcohol to class. In 2005, Champaign Mayor Jerry Schweighart, who is also the city’s liquor commissioner, ordered that campus bars could open no earlier than 11 a.m., and in 2009, he raised the bar entry age to 21 for the day.

However, local police authorities said these imposed measures have only pushed the holiday further underground to apartment and house parties.

“(Unofficial) is not even close to what it started out as, because it was very much a bar-centered event,” Frost said.

Interestingly enough, the spirit of Unofficial may outdate the event itself. Amy Anderson, an alumna who attended the University from 1983 through 1990, said she remembered celebrations for the real St. Patrick’s Day as very similar to Unofficial. She said campus bars served green beer as early as 7 a.m. She also remembered some campus restaurants serving green pancakes.

“St. Patty’s Day, when it was not during break, was a drunken fiasco,” Anderson said. “It was definitely a party on campus.”