Dave Pasch said that during his 30-year career as a renowned ESPN play-by-play man, he was on the microphone for two college basketball games that ended in storms on the court. One of those occurred earlier this month when unranked LSU defeated unranked LSU as game time expired at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. University of Kentucky. Pash recalled a conversation he and analyst Jay Williams had with the LSU athletic department staff before a game this week.
“We asked, if they beat Kentucky, are they going to hit the court?” Pash said. “He said, ‘No, we’re not storming the court here. We’ve beaten Kentucky before. Well, they won on a crazy last-second shot and, of course, they stormed the court.”
On the final play of the game, you can clearly hear Williams saying, “Didn’t we discuss today whether LSU has the right protocols in place to deal with a court storm?” ESPN cameras showed LSU Wide shot of fans flocking to the stadium.
The issue of stadium storming has gained national attention this week after Wake Forest fans ran onto the floor of Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum after Saturday’s win over Duke. Cameras captured video of multiple fans coming into contact with Duke star Kyle Filipowski, who eventually limped off the court, prompting Duke head coach Jon Schell to “When are we going to ban violence on the field?” he angrily asked in his post-press conference. Last month, Iowa star Kaitlyn Clark got into a fight with a group after the Buckeyes beat the Hawkeyes in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State University fans collided.
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ESPN producer Eric Mosley and director Mike Roig estimate they have dealt with 16 to 18 college games in which fans of one team stormed the field. When a team pulls off an upset at home against perennial heavyweights Duke, Kansas or Kentucky, there’s a lot of court-storming going on. Roeg guided Arkansas to an 80-75 victory over Duke on Nov. 29, and you could see Roeg’s long-range shot as fans packed the Bud Walton Arena floor.
Mosley said production plans for Court Storm were in place long before tip time. ESPN production staff looks in advance for safe locations where reporters and photographers can interview winning coaches and players. Directors such as Roeg held meetings with cameramen hours before the game to discuss protocols and various scenarios, including storming the court. The camera setup makes it possible for the viewer to have many entry points. For a regular-season college basketball game, there are typically five non-manned hardware and robotic cameras. They are located in a safe location away from crowds. Then there are three handheld cameras, controlled by operators located on the baseline and center court. (Duke Wake Forest’s overhead cameras captured the best footage of Filipowski’s encounter.)
“When we meet with (sports information directors) at certain games, one of the first questions we ask is if there’s an interest in courtstorming or if security will allow for that,” Mosley said. “We Find out where the student section is and how safe it is there. We asked where can we find our cameras and reporters to do post-game interviews with coaches and star players? We try to act early because we don’t want people like Holly Rowe, Jess Guys like Sims, Kris Budden and our camera crew got into unsafe situations. We didn’t want them to get trapped and trampled. For the most part, we were pretty successful.”
Dan Shulman, the play-by-play man for the Duke-Arkansas game, estimates that he has called 20 to 25 games involving storms during his career as an ESPN broadcaster. (Schulman is also the television voice of the Toronto Blue Jays.)
“As much fun as they looked on TV, I was always worried about what would happen,” Schulman said. “I remember one of the Louisville games against Charlotte, a court storm, and Doris Burke, the sideline reporter for the game, was trying to get an interview with the Charlotte coach, and I was worried about her. Security. Chaos on the pitch.
“Whenever a court storm occurs, it’s hard for those of us sitting at the table to really understand what’s going on. All we can really see are the people closest to our table. Sometimes, the student section may be behind our broadcast position, So when you’re trying to navigate the broadcast, it’s obviously a little bit unsettling to know that they’re heading to court. I think for the most part, people in television want that when these things do happen, it’s all fun and nobody gets hurt. . There’s no doubt it was a great visual on television and loved by many viewers. But for me, the risk outweighed the reward.”
Wake Forest fans took over their home court after Saturday’s win. Duke player Kyle Filipowski’s injury has reignited talk of a court storm. (Grant Halverson/NCAA Photo via Getty Images)
Bob Fishman agreed with Shulman. Fishman, who retired from CBS Sports last year after 50 years at CBS News and CBS Sports, coached 39 NCAA men’s Final Four games, including Michael Jordan’s run in the 1982 championship game. ’s game-winning shot and North Carolina State’s upset victory over Houston the following year. Fishman said he’s been thinking a lot about court rushes lately and would definitely not tell photographers to run onto the court during court rushes to make sure they get a spot under the basket and get the best shot they can.
“I’m very adamant about what I think should be done – you can’t ignore it,” Fishman said. “It’s not like a football game where streakers are running on the field and you don’t show it. I think you have to show it because it’s part of the story, especially now that players are injured. What I would do is throw out something Kind of a wide angle shot, probably from a back camera or what we call a high-definition camera. And then I’ll make sure the cameras on the field record everything and feed that into a tape machine. I’ll never put it out there. But I do think You have to show something and that’s a high goal in my opinion.”
Broadcasters and production staff, especially 24/7 news outlets like ESPN, must follow the story until the end, whether live or not.
“We have to remember that even if we go off the air, the files will continue to exist,” Mosley said. “We have to treat it as news coverage. For example, some of the stuff with Filipovski happened after the staff had quit and the network moved on to another game. We were taught and told over and over again that we needed to stay there And record it for as long as possible. That’s because there are people out there who are looking for those things.”
Mosley and Roeg said they often thought about how to document the court storm without glorifying the operation.
“That’s a difficult question to answer,” Roeg said. “You’re documenting it and you’re beautifying it. As a director, you have to walk that line. As directors, we’re always taught that when a person comes onto the field or the court, you don’t show them. Because if you show them They’re showing, more people are going to do it. It’s gone a long way. But it’s a little bit of a different animal, right? We’re talking about hundreds and thousands of people coming to the ballpark. … You blurred The boundaries of a document, or embellishment of it. You have to have the mindset to record it, but at the same time, you have to be careful about how you record it.”
On Monday on ESPN’s “First Take,” longtime ESPN college basketball commentator Jay Bilas criticized sports broadcasters for glorifying on-court storms.
“A few years ago, when fans were running off the field or court during a game, the network policy wouldn’t show that because we didn’t want to encourage that,” Bilas said. “So what does this say about the way we use these images in the media now? We can’t deny that we encourage it. Or at least presuppose it. Everyone has to take some responsibility for this. I think allowing this to happen is It’s not right, but I know this is going to continue.”
“It’s really a sensitive point because as a director, it’s a great scene, right? You want to show that,” Roeg said. “But seeing that last week (with Duke Wake Forest) I’ve never been in a situation like this before a game and it got to the point where it wasn’t fun anymore.”
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(Best photos from Saturday’s Duke-Wake Forest game: Cory Knowlton/USA Today)
