Court Storming is the Dumbest Tradition in American Sports
There are so many great traditions across American sports, but court storming in college basketball remains the dumbest of them all. And now, it might have cost one of the best players in the sport a significant amount of time.
After Wake Forest upset Duke on Saturday, fans of the Demon Deacons decided to do what hundreds of other fan bases have done over the years: Storm the court.
However, this time, one of the fans caught the knee of Duke’s Kyle Filipowski as he was trying to exit the court. The Duke big man then had to be carried off the court by his teammates.
Here’s the overhead look of the collision.
Here’s the video of Filipowski getting injured from the side view and his teammates having to carry him off the court.
There is absolutely no excuse for court storming. At least in football, players are in pads and helmets, and fans typically take a little bit longer to get on the field as they have to climb down or climb over the walling to get down to the field.
Court storming is always just a disaster waiting to happen. Frankly, I’m surprised injuries like this haven’t happened more often.
When are we going to stop the insanity? Many of these players are now highly-paid athletes thanks to NIL. And we’re allowing them to be put at risk of injury so a bunch of 18-22 year-old soy boys can run on the court and take a video for their Snapchats and TikToks? Grow up.
Universities need to get serious about protecting the players. Fines won’t do it. I’d say the NCAA needs to step in, but they’re a feckless operation. It will likely to be up to the conferences themselves to put enough pressure on the universities to implement safe guards that will deter court stormings from happening going forward.
Or, it will take a major lawsuit. And trust me, I can’t stand lawyers, generally speaking. But if Filipowski, a likely future NBA player, is injured in a way that impacts his future in the sport (God willing, this won’t be the case), but he may have a case against Wake Forest for lost of income.
None of these are outcomes I want to see, but it’s up to the universities to put an end to them. The potential downside far outweighs the potential upside.
