In a fight towards the end of Southeastern Conference Women’s Basketball Championship on Sunday In Greenville, South Carolina, South Carolina’s 7-foot-8 center Kamilla Cardoso shoved LSU’s 5-foot-1 guard Flau’jae Johnson. That prompted Trayron Milton, 24 years oldJohnson’s brother, jumped over the scorer’s table and onto the field, where he briefly made contact with Cardoso.
Milton seemed to size up the much larger Cardoso and realize he had made a terrible mistake. What if he hadn’t?
Milton appeared to size up the much larger Cardoso and realized he had made a terrible mistake, then backed away. But what if he hadn’t? Authorities say Milton shoved an SEC employee and stepped on the employee’s shoulders to get to court. Greenville police Milton was arrested for assault and disorderly conducttwo crimes. He was released from prison Monday after posting bail. Police say Two other people managed to get out of the stands and at the scorer’s table, but they were prevented from running onto the floor.
This may sound alarmist, but it would also be naive of us not to think about it. Former tennis star Monica Seleswhose career was derailed in 1993 when a Hamburg, Germany, fan stabbed her in the back as she sat on the changeover chair between games. When someone who shouldn’t be there rushes onto a pitch, there’s no way of knowing who has bad intentions.
The same goes for the jubilant fans who invade the pitch after an important, sometimes unexpected, victory. In both cases, the players are in danger.
This season alone we have seen fans rush the outcome of the court in a nearby injury For Caitlin Clark of Iowa — the most watched and most valuable player in all of college basketball — and in a Duke center Kyle Filipowski out with knee injuryafter Wake Forest fans stormed the field following their upset win over the Blue Devils. But that’s child’s play compared to what could happen: a serious injury, an assault or a season-ending accident. While the storming of the field is often dismissed as a joke or as kids being kids, when 15,000 people are crammed onto a 95-by-50-foot field, something unfortunate is bound to happen.
While this season has given us new reasons to be concerned about player safety and security, there are stories of fans storming the pitch that date back to over 60 years oldBut the phenomenon, now fueled by social media, where fans want to see their antics posted on Instagram as quickly as possible, has become de rigueur – almost a rite of passage – like never before.
This season alone, we’ve seen fans rush the court, nearly resulting in an injury to Iowa’s Caitlin Clark — the most-watched and most valuable player in all of college basketball — and a knee injury to Duke center Kyle Filipowski.
Courtroom stormings are supposed to happen after the home team beats a higher-ranked opponent or rival. But with such parity in men’s and women’s college basketball, such upsets are much more common. So fans show up not only hoping against hope that their team will win, but are also already prepared to storm the court if they do.
The dangers of court attacks have led some prominent voices in college basketball to propose radical, even prison-like, solutions: ESPN’s Jay Bilas, one of the most influential voices in these areas, said on one of that network’s shows last month that he wanted people who attack the courts to receive citations or be subject to arrest“Just say, ‘You’re all in custody,’ and give them all subpoenas, or arrest them if you wish. And the judicial assaults will stop the next day.”
The problem with this idea is that the deployment of law enforcement necessary to achieve this would turn every college stadium into an internment camp for arrest and detention. More police and surveillance seems to be the solution to everything in the United States. Just ask people on the New York subway..
Take former New York Police Department Chief Terence “Terry” Monahan, for example.who helped craft the anti-assault measures at Yankee Stadium. It would be “very easy to end it,” he told NBC News. “You make an announcement: ‘Hey, you’re subject to arrest, and if you’re a student, you could be suspended.’ All of a sudden, there are consequences on the court. Right now, there are no consequences — nobody’s saying you can’t do it.”
Greg Byrne, athletic director at the University of Alabama has a different approach. After Duke’s Filipowski Byrne told the Birmingham Tip-Off Club: “I think the way it’s going to stop, that’s going to get everybody’s attention to realise that this is dangerous… the home team is losing the game.” That would get a lot of students’ attention, but would it really stop the onslaught? And if it didn’t, would we really punish players – who may have just won the biggest game of their lives – by telling them they’ve lost? That seems very un-American.
Another suggestion is being made: Schools that host a home game – at considerable loss of profit and entertainment – could be stripped of their right to play a home game if the field is stormed. The question is whether fans who have had a few beers would care.
This response is irresponsible. The NCAA needs a uniform policy, and it needed one yesterday.
As for the NCAA, spokesman David Worlock told NBC News, “We do not have a policy regarding court storming. Policies are implemented and enforced at the conference and institutional level. It is not allowed during NCAA tournament games, and we work with the host sites to develop a security plan to try to prevent it.” That response is insane. The NCAA needs a uniform policy, and it needed one yesterday.
The only other solution that would not increase the prison population would be to ban the fans who invade the field from attending another home game. If not forever, then at least for this season. To do nothing, as the NCAA is doing, is to invite tragedy. To act before that would take courage and would certainly upset many fans, but it is certainly better than the alternative.
Players have the right to leave the field without being trampled, and even to jostle with members of the other team without people in the stands rushing in. This is a workplace safety issue and should be treated as such.
No one was injured in Sunday’s game between the Tigers and Gamecocks. But referees need to focus not on what didn’t happen, but on what could have happened.
