"Columnist breaks leg in Iowa State court-storming" ...
Can we all agree that storming the court is absolutely stupid in all situations now. Not to mention how idiotic it is to rush the court when you are the #4 ranked team in the nation and you just beat an unranked opponent at home. I propose that any team's crowd that storms a court is banned from having any fans at games for the rest of the season.
Let me be clear, my issue is not with ISU, they are simply this week's example of yet another pointless court storming. My issue is with the current rising trend of storming the court for seemingly any reason whatsoever. Its happening multiple times a week now. While a good and exciting game, the comeback was hardly miraculous or even unique. Comebacks like that happen every day in NCAA basketball let alone all of sports, in fact they happen at least 5-6 times in the opening days of March Madness but luckily none of those are played at home for a team so all their college students are not in the stands.
It should be reserved for the truly once in decade totally unexpected upset. Whats happening is now its a trend and dumb college students (who have nothing to do with the outcome of the game) are looking for any excuse to rush a court. The #4 team in the nation beating an unranked opponent at home is not that moment. If you're one of the nation's best teams, act like it.
This is akin to the late 90s early 2000s fad of rushing football fields and tearing down goalposts, which got so out of hand schools started getting sued from all the serious injuries and then had to start installing, "easy-down" goalposts for liability reasons and having security keep dumb students off the fields.
The SEC thankfully has actually implemented penalties now on the schools for allowing court storming:
"a school will be fined $50,000 for the first time fans storm a competition area. The fine increases to $100,000 for a second offense and $250,000 for the third and subsequent offenses."All other conferences should follow. The fact that ISU's coach and AD literally said "it is what it is" means we should be ok with people getting trampled 40-50 times a year and if you attend a game you should expect to get trampled.
People will brush this one off because it was an old photographer but last year coaches and players were getting hurt, and imagine if it were a toddler or a pregnant woman, the results could turn tragic. I'm all for celebrating a victory, but court storming is inherently dangerous, people need to find a safer way to celebrate.
