I get it... when you drink, everything is awesome. Words are too awesome to speak so you shout them, beers are too awesome to drink so you pound them, and yes... watching your football team win a game is super awesome, but enough is enough. As an alumni at the University of Colorado and witnessing the garbage that is the CU student section rushing the field this last weekend after beating a (1-3) Georgia team, it has become completely necessary to establish some etiquette on when to rush the field at a football game.
Instead of ranting and writing a few paragraphs about proper "field rush" etiquette, I will make it a simple list of qualifications that would deem you eligible for the biggest act of celebration in sports. This list is intended for drunk idiots... not classy people.
1. You win the National Championship (for the first time in over 15 years)
2. Your unranked team has been God awful for years and you just beat a top ranked team. (i.e. CU/Oklahoma 2007, UCLA/Texas 2010)
3. You just beat your arch-nemesis rival whom you haven't beat in over 10 years (on the last play of the game)
4. It is the last game in your stadium before your school raises out-of-state tuition and builds a new one. (... and you win)
5. Justin Bieber is on the 50 yard line signing autographs
I remember my first (and only) time rushing the field. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. As a kid I had imagined what it would be like to be a spectator at one of the all-time game great games and rushing onto that field with my fellow students and celebrating that moment in my school's history. When CU upset #3 Oklahoma in 2007 (27-24) it was ecstasy. My friends and I had been cheering and jumping so ecstatically that we actually broke the bleachers in half (and almost got arrested for trying to take the slab of wood home with us). The Buffs hadn't defeated a top 5 opponent since the Big 12 Championship in 2001, and when our boys went out there and spoiled any national title hopes that the Sooners had it was my proudest moment as a Buff fan.
Take that into consideration, "my proudest moment as a Buff fan." This wasn't just a big game, there's a few big games every year. Every once in a while an opportunity presents itself in time for someone, something, some people, to achieve (actual) greatness. Rushing the field should be held to a sacred category of celebration and only be used in the case of witnessing true, utter, unbelievable, and unmistakable greatness.
So, can you please find the courage to question yourself before you hop that barrier, "is this perhaps my biggest, proudest, and most emotionally binding experience for myself as a fan and my team?" It probably is not... Will I look back in twenty years and tell my kids about that time Colorado beat a 1-3 (now 1-4) football team? Hell to the no. I'm not trying to lecture you or put you down... okay I am, but this is for your own good and the good of our future generations.
For the sake of saving the biggest of celebratory acts, keep it on a pedestal. Keep it out of reach. Let the moment in history carry you to the top floor, reaching for the stars, and thanking God that you had the opportunity to be a part of the history you just witnessed. Let that moment be the time you will remember forever.
