here is the quote from the Wikipedia listed under notable events at the
Houston Field House

.

"The 1987 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987> Big Red Freakout! event
featured plastic horns as the giveaway. These horns made Houston Field House
reverberate with noise - so much noise, in fact, that the evening's
opponent, Brown, filed a complaint with the NCAA. In turn, this led to the
creation of what is today known as "the RPI rule" nationwide, which
prohibits fans from bringing artificial noisemakers into NCAA events."
The records show that Bob Gaudet didn't start coaching at Brown until 1988
and Herb Hammond was the Brown coach before that.
However, I don't know that Hammond served on the rules committee himself.

As I said, it was just legend. There are two coaches that are traditionally
disliked by RPI fans. Gaudet is one. When he moved from Brown to Dartmouth,
RPI fans  switched their dislike from Brown to Dartmouth.  The other coach
is Don Cahoon. This dates back to a game against Princeton in the late '80's
when Cahoon got pissed at some referees and proceeded to toss the chairs
from the Princeton bench area onto the ice.  After that, whenever Princeton
came back to Troy, there  was always a sign in the  crowd advising you not
leave your seat or Cahoon would grab it and throw it on the ice.


On 3/11/06, Bill Corrigan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> on 3/11/06 2:39 PM, Mark Lewin at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> > One of the teams who was unfortunate enough to be RPI's opponents during
> > those early years was Brown University who were coached by Bob Gaudet at
> the
> > time. Bob Gaudet also served on the NCAA rules committee during that
> > period.  After his team was victimized by RPI fans for 3 or 4 years, the
> > NCAA rules committee passed a rule stating that no artificial
> noisemakers
> > could be handed out at games and was further extended that none could be
> > brought into the arena during the game.  Legend has it that Bob Gaudet
> was
> > instrumental in bringing this rule about and has since become known as
> the
> > "RPI rule".  Since that time, the freakout gifts have been
> non-noisemakers
> > which are pretty lame. But I must admit, 5500 cowbells is enough to
> impact
> > one's hearing for many days after the game.
>
>         It wasn't Bob Gaudet who generated the "RPI rule", it was his
> predecessor, Herb Hammond.
>