The geezer speaks on crowd control

This will make me come across as the old guy standing on his porch, shaking his fist at some neighborhood kids while yelling, “Ya’ll get off my lawn.”

I’ll be accused of being so old that, since my own wild and crazy days are starting to fade from the memory banks, the only thing I can do now is make sure no one else can enjoy their hedonistic college days.

Maybe.

After all, I have started craving dinner around 4:30 every afternoon. And my pants are pulled up to my chest.

But I digress.

When the Florida State fans rushed the floor the other night after the Seminoles knocked off Duke – OK, actually mere seconds before the Seminoles knocked off Duke – I found it all rather childish. What happened to cheering on your favorite team, and then just leaving when the game was over? Happy if your team won. Not so happy if they didn’t.

Now certain fans feel they have to be part of it. Being in the same building as the players, sitting in the stands watching the action, is no longer good enough. Now fans want to be on the floor.
And, in getting there, they’ll do whatever they have to. Like jump over press row. Friend of the Nation Luci Chavez, the Duke beat writer for Raleigh’s News and Observer, got kicked in the head by some of those FSU fans Wednesday night. She was simply doing her job and, for her efforts, got a foot upside the noggin.

Florida State officials were criticized by ESPN’s announcers – Mike Patrick and Dick Vitale – for not doing enough to stop this kind of thing from happening. I don’t buy that. Short of metal bars surrounding the court, how are school officials supposed to stop this?

For his part, FSU athletics director Dave Hart said his school will take a look at how they can improve crowd control. They even boosted security for the Duke game assuming that, after the ‘Noles double-overtime loss in Durham, Florida State might have a chance to pull off the upset.
Still hundreds of students versus a couple of dozen of security guards isn’t a fair battle. That’s why the blame has to be placed solely on the students.

Sure, college is fun. And students should enjoy themselves. But they’re also supposedly adults – or in the process of becoming adults – while at college and they need to act the part. Stop living for the moment and think for a second what could happen.

FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said after the game he’s never heard of a player getting hurt during a basketball celebration. So, what, does that make it OK? Hamilton’s lucky his own player, Andrew Wilson, didn’t get crushed. Suffering from leg cramps, Wilson was lying on the floor when the fans stormed the court. Pure luck or the grace of God saved him from becoming a pancake. Or worse.

Here’s what you do. Any fan who comes on the court during or immediately after the game is banned for a year from attending more games. And that’s the first offense. On the second offense, no more games ever.

I realize it sounds good, but enforcing it could be difficult. So how to do it I’ll leave up to the schools to figure out. I’m guessing a scarlet letter is out of the question. I know when I was in college we had to show our student IDs to get into games. Maybe finding a way to scan IDs would be the solution (or maybe they already do that – as I mentioned earlier it’s been some time since I was a student).

Go ahead. Call me an old geezer. I prefer that over seeing someone get maimed or killed. Or even just kicked in the head.

- Patrick Hite