Court Storming

ZBU: We got a double topic post today as a new issue arose within the last day that I wanted to touch on at the end. First things first. By now everyone has heard about the fight that broke out between fans and players after Utah Valley's 66-61 overtime victory over New Mexico State. If you haven't, have a look https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2al0WUXpCXg. It was a pretty wild scene and to be fair it could have been avoided if New Mexico State guard K.C. Ross-Miller wouldn't have lost his cool and launched the ball at Utah Valley's Holton Hunsaker just before the buzzer. This act was definitely the spark that ignited the chaos. But let's be honest...it's really a surprise this doesn't happen more often in what has become a cliché ritual after wins.

Now I have to point out I have never had the pleasure of storming a court but I know people who have and they all say its a memorable experience. I absolutely think everyone should get to experience it once but when you have fans doing it on a weekly basis, it has to lose its meaning. Not to get all psychological here but I think this can be related back to how kids are raised these days. In the era of "every player gets a trophy," this generation's college students can't be left out of anything, so they have to storm courts like they used to see on tv after big games. Their fatal flaw, however, is they put no meaning behind their celebratory acts. They just do it so they can say they did. But as I said, when every kid gets a trophy and everyone has stormed a court, the passion and meaning are long gone. Do I think a court should be stormed every once and a while? Absolutely. Should you see it happen every week on ESPN and has it become redundant? Without a doubt.

Pav: I think the Indiana Pacer's incident with Stephen Jackson and Ron Artest is a huge reason fans' interaction should be severely limited. The problem is that everyone wants to be as close as possible to the action. People want to be seen next to these athletes so they can be a more intimate part of the experience. The problem is, spectators CAN'T be a part of the action. The sanctity of sports is gone, then.  It only ever hides in the nooks and crannies between social media and fan interaction. Those spaces are disintegrating. I think the Pacer's incident proves that people can't handle being so close to the action a lot of the time. I realize there are two sides to the aggression in the example I'm using, but its hard to protect an already vulnerable athlete from any one of thousands of possibly drunk, likely angry fans. Athletes should be left to celebrate or fight or cry without your drunk asshole friend shoving his face in the camera doing the "suck it" gesture. I do, though, think there is certainly a place for mass celebration...

If you're South Carolina (not picking on the Gamecocks) and you beat No. 25 Kentucky for your fourth conference win of the year, you aren't special and you've won nothing. You are celebrating something less than mediocrity. You are celebrating the fact that you are inferior. This happens almost once a week in whichever conference happens to be televised. Where do you go from there?

Mike Krzyzewski says that Duke fans only storm the court for Championships. Expect greatness from your school or team. Don't celebrate getting lucky or the fact that you beat a perennially great team on a bad night. I went to The U as a freshman in 2004 thinking I would for sure see a championship football game of some kind. It never happened. In fact we were pretty average for the four years I was in Coral Gables. We never celebrated victories as though it would be the only one we'd ever have. I can guarantee we would've found a way around the security wall if we'd won a National Championship, though. We need to give our athletes (professional and, um, otherwise) the respect that we expect them to be better than the game before. Respect them enough to hold them to higher standards than the mediocre.