Is the SEC going overboard in its drive to stop fans from rushing the field/court?
Greg Sankey seems intent on declaring all-out war on celebratory fans rushing football fields or storming basketball courts.
The SEC commissioner has convened a three-man working group of league athletics directors — including Kentucky’s Mitch Barnhart — to make proposals to create a more effective deterrent to fans flooding playing areas after momentous victories.
Presently, the SEC levies escalating fines on schools for “violations of competition areas” that range from $50,000 (first offense) to $100,000 (second offense) to $250,000 (third offense and upward).
Just how ineffective the fine system is as a deterrent was underscored last fall after Tennessee snapped its 15-game football losing streak against rival Alabama with a 52-49 upset of the No. 3 Crimson Tide at Neyland Stadium. The joyous Rocky Top fans who spilled out of the stands to charge the field in celebration created one of the most enduring images of the 2022 college football season.
When University of Tennessee President Randy Boyd was asked about having to pay the cost of a field storming, he all but scoffed. “It doesn’t matter,” Boyd said, “we’ll do this every year.”
University of Tennessee President Randy Boyd had an awesome response to the goal posts coming down after their win against Alabama
: @Tarheelbb pic.twitter.com/9duhYAipwq— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) October 17, 2022
That cavalier response from an SEC president to the abundant safety issues that arise from rushing the field and storming the court might be what motivated Sankey to further action.
“You have to evaluate the responsibility for the safety of the visiting team,” Sankey told SI.com’s Ross Dellenger last week. “We talk about the dangers for the fans, the danger of people jumping over walls. Dangers for the officials. That’s the kind of conversation the adults in the room have had. The adults will continue to have that conversation.”
Among the possible new sanctions being considered by the SEC working group — which, in addition to UK’s Barnhart also includes Alabama’s Greg Byrne and Georgia’s Josh Brooks — is having teams whose fans storm fields forfeit games; having teams give up a future league home game; and a football bowl ban.
“I don’t think just passing a rule can stop (field rushing),” Sankey told SI.com. “People have to stop it.”
There are myriad reasons why celebratory SEC crowds continue to charge playing surfaces.
For one, it is fun, exhilarating even, to rush a field.
It is a way to create a lasting memory and to feel a direct link to one of your favorite team’s marquee moments.
There is also something uniquely “collegiate” about students rushing the field to celebrate an achievement by their erstwhile classmates on athletic scholarship. It is a connection to a (perceived) more innocent time in college sports.
Yet Sankey and his “adults in the room” have a point about the risks that accompany field/court rushing. The college sports hierarchy is terrified that the postgame mixing of onrushing home fans with visiting players/officials is going to lead to an incident of violence.
In 2010, after South Carolina upset John Calipari’s No. 1-ranked Kentucky men’s basketball team in Columbia, Gamecocks fans charged the floor. In the bedlam, it was alleged that UK big man DeMarcus Cousins struck a fan.
Arkansas backers stormed the court in 2014 after the Razorbacks scored an 87-85 overtime victory over UK in Fayetteville. In the mayhem, Kentucky guard Aaron Harrison and a “heckling Arkansas fan” had to be separated.
In the havoc that followed Tennessee’s football upset of Alabama last fall, it was alleged that Crimson Tide wideout Jermaine Burton struck a female UT fan in the head while trying to escape the field.
Nick Saban, on the incident with Jermaine Burton last weekend at Tennessee.
Here’s part of his answer. Says that Burton, himself and players were scared. pic.twitter.com/SLiRsAtSQB— Trey Wallace (@TreyWallace_) October 23, 2022
It doesn’t take much imagination to conceive of how such scenarios could morph into an all-out brawl that could yield life-altering consequences.
In the case of the local SEC school, Kentucky Wildcats hoops fans have not stormed the court since March 8, 1973. That night in Memorial Coliseum, UK vanquished border rival Tennessee 86-81 in a game that determined both the SEC regular-season title and the conference’s sole berth in the NCAA Tournament.
After the Kentucky victory, excited UK backers carried the Wildcats’ first-year head coach, Joe B. Hall, off the floor on their shoulders. That moment meant so much to Hall that he told me in 2015 he still had a picture of it.
In football, I can recall nine times that Kentucky fans have rushed the field at Commonwealth Stadium/Kroger Field. The goalposts coming down after “Couch to Yeast” beat Alabama in overtime in 1997 and Matt Roark being carried off the field by fans in 2011 after “the wide receiver playing quarterback” directed UK to its first football win over Tennessee since 1984 are two of my favorite Kentucky sports memories.
Ultimately, the question at stake with what to do about court/field rushing is basic: Does the risk of a fight between losing players and winning fans or the possibility of someone being injured in the general chaos of such events justify ending a custom that has historically made college sports unique — and more fun for fans?
Alas, the responsible answer to that question is not the more fun, more emotionally satisfying one.
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