Of all the places in which a field was charged, goal posts were torn down and fans imperiled, the strangest might have been Berkeley, Calif.

Engaged in the 105th grandiosely-named Big Game against Stanford, the proud Golden Bears sold out their stadium for the first time in 46 games, beat the 2-8 Cardinals for the first time in eight years, and, well, damn it, they were just in a really good mood.

Truth is, it will take a horrific disaster, and to more than one person, for anything to be done, as it was after the accident at Heysel Stadium in Belgium that killed dozens of soccer fans nearly two decades ago. That's what it takes to inspire action. That's what it always takes.

So they poured out of the student section past a bewildered line of yellow-jacketed security drones, filled the Cal sideline end zone to end zone, rushed the field with 11 seconds to go, and then bulled their way through two rings of 30 more yellow jackets and uniformed cops to bring down the posts.

Nobody was hurt. In fact, the one yahoo who rode the north goal posts like Slim Pickens riding the nuclear bomb down to Moscow in "Dr. Strangelove" (and who seemed to be having an unusually good time in that position, we might add) dismounted after a few minutes and was neither arrested, pepper-sprayed or even cursed.

The security people, you see, had already applied Sports' Sixth Law Of Gravitational Physics -- When 30 Of Them Land On One Of You, You're On Disability -- and gave up the goals for their own safety.

And you can't blame them, either. Would you protect a couple of thousand bucks of school property from 50 charging students ... or 50 charging anything, for that matter?

Let me help you. No.

In fact, the security people at Clemson saw one of their own hurt after Tiger fans charged the field Saturday, and are thinking of leaving the university to other devices to save the equipment and keep it from crushing someone's skull.

Herein lies the NCAA's latest mess -- figuring out how to save the equipment and their members' liability coverage by keeping the field clear after sporting events.

There were far worse examples this past weekend than Berkeley, of course. Postgames in Columbus, Ohio, Honolulu, Raleigh, N.C., Clemson, S.C., and Pullman, Wash., resulted in injuries, and much hand-wringing from all corners about What To Do, because every solution is incomplete.

Leave the drunkards to their own devices, and let God sort out the undeserving? A little too Darwinian, and courting lawyers from every corner of America's seamy wainscoting.

Fence them in? People have been crushed to death by the score at soccer stadiums, the most recent being more than a year ago in Nigeria.

Ban alcohol? They already do, but students still pack their own inebriates, usually in their own systems, for which the only reliable positive test can be found on your shoe if you're not careful.

Force everyone to drink their way into paralysis? Way too Darwinian.

Pepper spray? Hardly fan friendly, and also lawyer-enriched behavior.

So the NCAA is likely to do what it always has, and prefers when confronted by a difficult and/or expensive problem -- Leave It Up To The Individual Institution.

The Southeastern Conference's spokesman, Charles Bloom, was quoted in Tuesday's New York Times story by Joe Drape as saying, "Our primary goal is to keep the players, coaches, staff and cheerleaders safe. Do fans have the right to storm the field? It's my opinion that they don't."

Which is fine, except that fans don't discuss their rights before storming a field. They just storm the field, leaving our pal Bloom to shake his fist at them from the press box and offer a cheerful, "Why I Oughta ... "

	After a big win, many fans want to bring home a souvenir.

They don't do this in baseball or hockey or even pro football, and rarely in pro basketball, and the only reason we suspect is the fact that prices for down-close seats are so prohibitive that they only draw the fabulously sedentary.

College football has that overwhelming combination of (a) students, (b) alcohol, (c) excitement, (d) proximity and (e) numerical superiority. And we feel confident that none of those will change any time soon.

Students buy tickets, which brings money into the athletic department, not to mention the pomp and pageantry of college football that bloated mega-alums cannot. If you're willing to exclude them from the process (and some schools certainly are), then you've solved the problem right there.

The only measure short of that with any hope of success is putting security measures that address both proximity and numbers. In other words, lots more cops and lots more barriers between the crowd and the objects of their drunken affection.

Will any of these measures be instituted on a national basis? Of course not. The NCAA isn't incurring costs that can be left to its members. Will it take someone being badly injured, like Meg Cimino at the 1985 Harvard-Yale game, who was struck on the head by a falling goal post? That already happened, and the goal posts still come down.

Truth is, it will take a horrific disaster, and to more than one person, for anything to be done, as it was after the accident at Heysel Stadium in Belgium that killed dozens of soccer fans nearly two decades ago. That's what it takes to inspire action. That's what it always takes.

Until then, you can only watch, and hope for the best, as at Berkeley. Watching the goal posts rock back and forth until you hear the loud metal snap that either brings cheers or tragedy.

Until then, you can only look at the security people and say, "I know they paid you to stay, but you're a fool if you don't leave."

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com