Gary Cosby Jr.-Imagn Images
Storming the court or field after a big win is a fairly beloved tradition among college sports fans, but it can also create a dangerous scene for players and spectators alike. The SEC is one of a handful of conferences that fines guilty teams in the hopes of dissuading the practice to no real avail, and Alabama’s athletic director has thrown his support behind an incredibly no-nonsense proposal he thinks could end it once and for all.
It’s believed college basketball witnessed its first court-storming when fans rooting for The City College of New York rushed onto the hardwood at Madison Square Garden in 1950 after their team became the first squad to win the NIT and the NCAA Tournament in the same year.
I can’t track down any definitive sources concerning the first time a similar scene transpired at a college football game, but jubilant fans have been rushing the field (and tearing down goalposts) for decades on end to celebrate a huge victory on their home turf.
Those awe-inspiring scenes have the potential to turn ugly given their inherently chaotic nature; Duke’s Kyle Filipowski suffered a minor injury after colliding with a Wake Forest fan who stormed the court after the Deamon Deacons beat the Blue Devils last season, and a member of the Arkansas faithful got absolutely obliterated by a Tennessee player during the most recent college football season.
The SEC hit the Razorbacks with a $250,000 fine in the wake of that second contest due to the policy the conference initially introduced in 2004 that allows it to levy those financial penalties against schools with the help of a tier system that raises the amount they need to fork over with each infraction (it’s $100,000 for the first and $500,00 for the third and all that transpire after).
The conference has raised those amounts on multiple occasions, but it hasn’t really done much to prevent fans from making their way onto the football field or basketball court.
In January, Vanderbilt’s athletic director made a direct (and ultimately unsuccessful) appeal to students during the team’s upset over Kentucky in the hopes of saving the program $500,000, and at the end of the day, there’s only so much logic and reason can do when it comes to influencing a mob mentality.
According to ESPN, Alabama AD Greg Byrne has endorsed a radical solution he seems to think could stamp out the practice during a recent interview where he discussed forfeits as a potential storming deterrent, saying:
“I truly believe if we said that the home team, if they storm the field or the court, they’re going to lose that game right then and there, that will stop it.”
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey noted that was a “tough proposition” while nonetheless hinting there are other people in power who share a similar sentiment, but it’s very hard to believe the conference would actually end up going that far.
One of the biggest issues with the fine system is the fact that schools have to foot the bill as opposed to the spectators responsible for flooding onto the playing surface.
There’s no realistic way to pass the cost on to those fans, and while I almost hesitate to put this out into the universe in the first place, it does seem like that would be a pretty effective strategy if someone smarter than myself was able to figure out how to do so.