Goalposts can kill


Rushing the field and tearing down the goalposts is just good ol’ fun, right? It’s up there with apple pie and Fourth of July fireworks.

Except it’s not. It poses a significant safety risk to students, and it’s a horrendous waste of money.

It would be akin to students, after a big win, taking a sledgehammer to the bleachers or pouring buckets of paint everywhere. It’s wasteful and stupid.

Consider this: a student at a small Minnesota college was killed during an on-the-field celebration.

He was hit on the head by a falling goalpost.

Simply put, rushing the field is an unnecessary safety risk. Goalposts also cost a pretty penny. Each one of the goalposts that was cut into small pieces by hundreds of students costs about $6,000. That’s a $12,000 bill the athletic department has to foot to re-equip the field.

That’s $12,000 that did not go for scholarships or equipment to ensure the safety of our student-athletes. Non-revenue sports always complain about a lack of funding compared to large sports such as football and basketball. Paying for goalposts that worked perfectly before Saturday’s game doesn’t help anything.

What the newly created task force should do is tell the police to focus their efforts on the goalposts themselves when students rush the field. A ring of police officers should surround each goalpost.

If students celebrated on the field but were prevented from climbing on the goalposts, the safety risk would diminish and a considerable sum of money would be saved.

This staff editorial originally appeared in The Maneater at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

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