LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The SEC announced Tuesday that it had fined the University of Kentucky $100,000 because some Wildcats fans came onto the Kroger Field playing surface to celebrate after the football Wildcats upset then-No. 14 Mississippi State, 28-7, Saturday night.
"Fans are expected to remain in the stands and avoid the safety concerns associated with rushing onto the playing field," SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement. "We want exciting experiences around SEC games, but also seek to maintain a safe environment for student-athletes, coaches, spectators and officials."
According to the news release, access to SEC competition areas is restricted only to players, coaches, officials, support personnel and "properly credentialed individuals."
A first offense carries a fine of $50,000 for the offending school. A second costs $100,000. Starting with the third, any additional violation brings a levy of a cool $250,000.
According to the SEC office, Kentucky's "first violation" under the current SEC policy came in 2014 after the Wildcats beat South Carolina in football.
What happened after the Cats vanquished Mississippi State was less a field "storm" than a slow trickle of fans who joined the UK players on the field to celebrate victory.
"We feel like we didn't get our money's worth because only a few fans leaked out there," Kentucky Coach Mark Stoops said Wednesday in an interview with CBS Radio.
In the big picture, is the SEC right to take such a hard line against field/court rushing? Let's examine the pros and cons.
Some of the most memorable moments in University of Kentucky football history have been punctuated by Cats fans charging the field.
The goal posts came down in 1997 after "Couch to Yeast" in overtime gave Kentucky its first football victory over Alabama since 1922.
Kentucky fans swarmed the field after the 2007 Cats upset No. 1 LSU. They did so again in 2010 after the Wildcats beat a Steve Spurrier-coached team, in this case South Carolina, for the first time ever.
In 2011, jubilant Kentucky backers lifted Matt Roark to their shoulders and carried him off the field after the "wide receiver playing quarterback" helped the Cats end a 26-game losing streak against Tennessee.
Those fan celebrations are a part of what makes the memories of those games so vivid.
Since the adoption of collapsible goal posts removed the possibility of fan injuries during the celebratory tearing down of goal posts, rushing the court in basketball -- a highly compressed area -- seems more dangerous to fans than charging the field after a football game.
As a historic underdog, Kentucky football tends to be on the celebratory side of field stormings. Conversely, as the all-time winningest men's basketball program, Kentucky teams in that sport tend to be on the less fun side of rushing the court.
(As best as I can tell, the last time a Kentucky home basketball crowd charged the floor in celebration was March 8, 1973, in Memorial Coliseum. That night, first-year Kentucky coach Joe B. Hall and the Wildcats beat rival Tennessee 86-81 in a game that decided the SEC title.
Kentucky fans hoisted Hall to their shoulders and carried him off the court. (In 2015, Hall told me he still keeps a picture of that moment).
Recent Wildcats basketball history illustrates why the SEC -- and in the news release announcing its fine of Kentucky football, the league emphasized that the SEC schools unanimously supported the rush-the-field ban -- is taking such a hard line on post-game mingling of fans with players.
The college sports hierarchy is terrified that a post-game field/court storming is going to lead to an incident of violence.
In 2010, after Darrin Horn and South Carolina upset John Calipari's No. 1-ranked Wildcats in Columbia, Gamecocks fans charged the floor. In the bedlam, it was alleged that Kentucky big man DeMarcus Cousins struck a fan.
Arkansas backers stormed the court in 2014 after the Razorbacks scored a last-second 87-85 overtime victory over Kentucky in Fayetteville. Kentucky freshman guard Aaron Harrison and a "heckling Arkansas fan who came onto the court" had to be separated.
It's not just Kentucky basketball that has had similar incidents, either.
After homestanding Virginia beat Duke in 2013, it was reported that Blue Devils Coach Mike Krzyzewski and a Cavaliers fan had a post-game verbal altercation on the court.
Just one of those situations blowing up into an all-out brawl could result in life-changing consequences.
That risk of a fight between losing players and winning fans makes the hard line the SEC has taken against field/court storming justifiable -- even as it removes some of what made college sports fun for fans.
Sports on 09/29/2018