The court storming debate has swirled around college basketball for a good number of years now. For every pundit that wants to create their own version of the Unwritten Rules for Court Storming, there are those that want to let college kids celebrate great victories uninhibited. This debate can get pretty tiresome and ridiculous when it comes to an etiquette perspective for people who want to create certain ground rules for when court storming is acceptable.
However, there is some credence to debating the practicality of court storming when it comes to safety issues. And that was on full display in Ames, Iowa tonight after the Iowa-Iowa State game as a reporter for the Des Moines Register was injured during the storming of the court.
Columnist Randy Peterson, covering the game for the paper, suffered an apparent broken leg after the Cyclones came from way back to defeat the rival Hawkeyes 83-82:
Peterson appears to have suffered a compound leg fracture, according to Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard, during the post-game rush. He is being taken to Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines.
Here’s the video of the game-winner in the final seconds by Monte Morris and the court-storming afterwards. You can see Peterson being tended to at about the 1:09 mark in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.
Somehow Peterson was able to maintain a sense of humor about the whole thing:
Ouch
— Randy Peterson (@RandyPete) December 11, 2015
When court-storming safety issues are discussed, usually it’s the opposing players who have the biggest safety concerns in one of these situations with hundreds of fans coming onto the playing surface. But let’s face it, there are dozens and dozens of others at risk when this oncoming rush of humanity all tries to enter the same space. As much as we may want fans to be able to have these moments, it might be worth finally clamping down so someone else doesn’t get hurt worse.