Court Storm
This is actually going to be a pretty short post today. There were some events that happened over the past weekend in the college basketball world that have raised a lot of concerns about the practice of "court storming" after a game.
I know, I know, the photo above is of a baseball field, so it really doesn't apply to this situation, but it was the closest thing I could find without turning to Pixabay or AI to get what I needed. You will just have to imagine this isn't a concert and it isn't a baseball field.
This past weekend Wake Forest had a huge upset victory over Duke. It was a good day for me because first I won some money from the bet I put on Wake Forest. Second, anytime Duke loses it is a good day for me.
Anyway, after the game, the fans stormed the court and before one of the Duke players could get off the court he knocked knees with a fan and in true Duke fashion it has made national news.
I'm actually not opposed to banning court storming, but I am not sure how they would be able to accomplish something like that. At the very least, they should make sure all opposing players are off the court before the storm happens.
A lot of people see court storms as sort of classless. I kind of agree with that. As my brother in law would say "act like you've been there before". Yes, it was a big win, but the act of storming the court kind of implies that your win never should have happened or it was a miracle.
That's a slap in the face to the team who just played their heart out to get the win.
Personally, I don't see how you enforce it if they did choose to ban it. It would taken an insane amount of security to manage that kind of crowd. Maybe they put up walls like hockey rinks have (for different reasons obviously).
The only real solution I can think of is to impose strict penalties on teams where this happens. No, it isn't fair to the players, but I don't see how else you keep that many euphoric people in line.
They would need to force the team to forfeit their next game or something like that to keep students from crossing that line. As I said, any penalty would actually hurt the players more than the fans, but I don't really see it working any other way.
Short of a major facility upgrade.
What do you think?
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I was involved in a court storm during a football game in college. our own fans booed us from their seats and I did kind of feel bad about it. The announcers made multiple attempts at suggesting we don't do it and all security was lined up to stop us from doing it. When the time came and we rushed the field anyway security and police just got out of the way because they knew the odds were not in their favor since it was 15,000 against 40 or so.
I think it should be banned but honestly what are they going to do? Arrest everyone? That seems like it would turn riot pretty quickly.
Oh wow, I have never been involved in one and I don't think I would ever want to be. You make a good point about the punishment I don't think it's feasible to punish the offenders, which makes their only option punishing the team or the school which effectively punishes the team. After a couple forfeits in what could have been a championship season, people might get the message.
That's a very good point. That is exactly how they could handle it. It would work. I guess the reason why that doesn't happen is because people don't generally get injured during these things, once people do, the approach to it all will change.
It's still not fair to the players, but the way people think they can do whatever they want these days, I don't see any other viable option.