Iowa State beat writer injured during court storming

A TV reporter I know got his leg run over and broken by one of those big rolling camera lifts during the Alabama-Tennessee game in 2005. The guy who was supposed to be spotting for the lift driver was apparently watching the game instead of looking out for people.

The TV guy ended getting a pretty big settlement from CBS.

 

Your post brings to mind page 3 of this thread.

 

No bleacher collapse. Whole student section tried to push down to the field. Kids got caught on the railings at the font and went under. Scary stuff.

 

Prohm sounds like a complete dickbag.
So does the AD.

Randy Pete needs to man up and make a bigger deal out of this so that someone doesn't get hurt worse next time.

 

I was there at Camp Randall. The bleachers didn't collapse as much as 12,000 students pushing as one unit to get onto the field. Sections O and P are "pie shaped".

We had just beaten the Todd Collins-Wolverines. As I felt the force of the students behind me (I was about 20 rows up), I stepped over the rest of the students because I am unusually tall. Hopping over the waist high fence was easy for me but not for the 4 young women who nearly died.

Damn lucky no one died that day. Sobered all of us up in a hurry.

That was also GA seating in 1993 for the students. The next year at Wisconsin, along the price of student tickets being doubled to pay for Barry's bar tab, student seats were assigned.

 

When I was a kid, I remember fans storming the field after the White Sox clinched the American League West. (We stayed in our seats.) You see it all the time in old MLB and NBA highlights. But not any more. It's real easy: You storm the court, you are subject to arrest.

I've been saying for years that this shit has to stop. Someone is going to get killed. In fact, I can see an incident in which multiple people are killed.

 

Maybe you haven't watched Iowa basketball lately. They made the NCAA Tournament last year. The atmosphere is much-improved, and they drew over 11,000 for an ACC/Big 10 Challenge game vs Florida State on a weeknight.
And you'd better believe Carver-Hawkeye would have been sold out for the Iowa-Iowa State game. The reporters are further removed, but other than that, this is inaccurate. Iowa basketball gets plenty of attention in these parts, even in December.

 

If you think that, you really don't know Randy. He's a pro's pro who has traded off between covering Iowa and Iowa State (that's how the Register did it until recently) in a 40-plus year career. He's the furthest thing from a homer, and I hate that this happened to him, but love how he has handled it.

 

Oh, I've kept up with Iowa basketball, Big Red ... was trying to be humorous in my post.

I attended/graduated from Iowa in the early 1990s, and even back then, basketball fans complained that students didn't support the team enough. Part of the problem was (at least back then) all the seats near the court went to big-time donors who helped get Carver-Hawkeye Arena built, and those folks tended to be older (and not as rowdy) as college students. And then the team struggled for most of 2000s and the students stayed away in droves.

Glad to see the team's doing better ... and I was happy to take the abuse from all the Gonzaga fans in my neck of the woods last spring, because it meant Iowa not only made the tourney, but belonged among the nation's top teams.

If I make it back to the Midwest for a game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, I promise not to rush the floor!

 

Ahh, OK, I gotcha. Didn't quite pick up on that. I'm an Iowa alum as well, a bit later than you. I agree the atmosphere took a big hit during the ugly Todd Lickliter era, but it's gotten much better under Fran McCaffrey. The students are closer to the floor now and they're coming back - it'll be better, obviously, for Big 10 games, but it hasn't been bad at all for the "big" early home games. For the record, I'm not a rush-the-court guy either, but if they beat Michigan State in the Big 10 opener, I'll gladly sit back and enjoy watching the students do so.

 

Maybe I should have used the blue font? It's called sarcasm big fella.

I already knew Randy didn't rush the court to celebrate. The jab was at some of the homers I've known in this business. Randy was merely a tool that allowed me to execute the jab.

 

Wasn't very well executed.