Athletic programs in the public schools and colleges are often justified by assertions that competitive team sports build character and sportsmanship for participants and spectators, and that sports reinforce such school and community ideals as the virtues of competition, patriotism, and the desirability of healthy living. Spectator behavior at public and sporting events at an intermountain university was examined in order to determine the relationship between the type of athletic event and fan aggression. Violence and fan aggression were found to be directly associated with the type of athletic event; high body contact sports (football) tend to inspire the greatest aggression, while individualized sports (track) inspire the least; other crowd-related variables were also found to be influential. The characteristics of the "sports subculture," Short's aleatory factors of delinquency, the frustration-aggression hypothesis, and the concept of catharsis were employed in a functional explanation of the occurrence of spectator aggression. Ten hypotheses were developed and tested in support of the explanation, and recommendations for controlling or modifying spectator aggression are included. The authors suggest that individualized sports should be stressed more (along with the recommendations included for modifying spectator behavior) to counter the trend in sports violence. (Author)