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MissouriAlum

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  1. I've either heard or witnessed what you've said. There is no argument for most of it and I understand it's complicated. I just feel like there are a lot of St. Louisans that graduated from MU or have some other connection that would support SLU if it came down to it. Spoon won a lot of people over so that at least shows it's possible. I think the MU folks not from St. Louis probably won't ever, but there are a lot of things about St. Louis that people that aren't from there will not understand. For example, I never thought I would root for Illinois in anything, but I enjoyed watching their team from 2 years ago so much that I watched every one of their games that I could because they played the game the right way (I think they were the most amazing passing team I've seen when they were on which was most of the time) and they seemed really classy to me. I actually almost wore orange to the Bragging Rights game last year (mainly in protest I'll admit), but decided against it and I think I generally hope they win everytime that they play (except for one game per year). I think that's what I'm talking about. It won't happen with everyone, but it's possible at least for some if not most. I gave my thoughts on the media below. If no one is happy with them, then it's something else. My impression was that Ramsey and Cusamano have been more constant ambassadors for SLU than anyone else for MU (and it's not even close in my opinion). In a very general way, the rest of the media probably cater to MU more, but MU gets more year-round coverage naturally with football so it probably will always seem like they get more coverage. I never thought that UoI gets very much coverage and they've been by far the best of the 3 teams in basketball for awhile now. No matter what I say, I won't be popular if all I talk about is MU. I will be glad to give an opinion if directly asked, but I'm generally going to try and abstain from it unless it's necessary or asked (I'm going to invoke Griffster rules on this one ). I think I've made my point (and at least given an idea that not all MU fans are totally unbearable). I really do appreciate the feedback everyone has given (well almost everyone). I'm going to crawl back into the hole where I came from for awhile.
  2. From being a long-time off-and-on reader of the board, I'd agree with the thought that the mere mention of MU sets people off on here. I was pretty sure I'd be seen for my "true colors" if I didn't admit it immediately any way. I wouldn't have posted what I did if I didn't want to discuss SLU basketball and get to what I see as the core issues as to why I was turned off by it. Like I said, ultimately, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't like the Billikens so that was why I posted. I was hoping to draw out some of the more intelligent SLU and dare I say even MU posters that might linger here and I think that happened kind of. It was a risk, but hopefully it opened some eyes at least. I've seen too many people (a lot recently) post good thoughts and be nit-picked by the "bullies" when they were obviously making good contributions to the board. It might be a pipe dream, but now that MU has a coach with integrity, I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be some mutual respect when it is deserved. Honestly, from what I've read on here, I feel like the majority of SLU fans on here would say they hold SLU athletics in general up to a higher standard (academics, sportsmanship, philosophy, integrity, etc) so I don't get why comparing themselves to the most obnoxious fans from MU or any team and then repeating the same behaviour as these fans serves that purpose. If I'm off base on this, I'm sure someone will tell me.
  3. As this digresses, this was my point on that issue as well: >And as far as undergrad goes, SLU and MU are essentially on >a level playing field. > I don't think it's right to bash either school academically. If it's just a few isolated people doing this (as seems to be the case here), that's normal and really, I would hope Mods would deal with that (here and anywhere else) since it's not really doing anyone any good. It just seems to not be worth alienating potential and real fans of SLU (at least speaking for myself) since the majority of casual fans in St. Louis at least, probably will root for both. Since this is one of the only places that people can read about SLU athletics, anyone with more than a passing interest will probably come here at some point. If they are met with constant animosity across the board, it's pretty easy to see how they could generalize that to the entire fanbase whether it's true or not.
  4. I really appreciate all of the responses. This was really what I was looking for actually. I was hoping that this could be a good discussion point and not turn unpleasant. I couldn't agree more that MU seems to have more than their share of extremely drunk, unpleasant fans. Like I'm not here to defend Snyder, Alden, etc, I'm not hear to defend them either. I'm not one of them, never have been, and don't ever plan to be. I've been left shaking my head many times at these "fans". For whatever reason, it crossed the line to me to continually bash the educational integrity and morality of the school (Mike Alden excluded. Anyone can bash him as far as I'm concerned since he got us into this, in my humble opinion). It's probably not right for me to base my opinion of SLU based on only a small number of posters, but those posters were so overbearing and seemingly "knowledgeable" about other things that it was hard to look past. It's pretty easy to eliminate the people that just stir things up elsewhere, but here the line seemed a little blurred, especially on this topic since it seemed to be the consensus many times. That being said, I came over here today to try and get past that because I can't see any reason why I shouldn't wish good things for SLU and I wanted to work through those issues a little bit. At least as long as I've followed them, SLU has always won games with hard-working, less-talented over-achieving guys (Larry Hughes and maybe a couple of other exceptions). All 4 coaches that they have had since I've followed them have been classy too. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I didn't want them to do well so I thought I'd bring the issue out here and see what happened. I think this is a good start. Like I said, I truly believe there are other MU fans that are in a similar position to me that would root for SLU pretty easily if it came to it. There just any reason for this to be a bitter rivalry at this point(at least until the teams start playing games annually and even then I'm not so sure). Thanks again for all of the discussion.
  5. I agree with you on basically everything that you said. I'm in no way defending Quin. I think he was an idiot and he will be remembered as such. I actually have more of a problem with Alden since he is the one that sold the program out. Norm was old and stubborn. SLU and MU should have been playing in the 90's when they were both good, but didn't because Norm didn't think that he had to. The media coverage is a weird issue since I know most MU folks think they get the short-end of it even though they have alums reporting in some instances. Cusamano and Ramsey seem to be so visible and positive about SLU most of the time and I don't think MU has anyone like those two in the area (Slaten seems to be big MU sometimes but he doesn't really count to me). MU folks also believe that a certain amount of unusual "investigative" reporting increased their problems. If no one is happy with the coverage in the area (SLU, MU, or I'm sure UI), than that's a different problem to me. I guess this was just my way to try and figure out why I don't root for the Billikens anymore. This was my attempt for the SLU fanbase to win me back over. It's weird because I don't think that SLU-MU should be as polarizing as it is at least for me. I feel like I should be able to root for both, but my heart won't let me for some reason now. It's the only STL team I don't root for at this point and that's a little weird for me. I live out of the area now so I only see what I want anyway. No harm done I guess.
  6. I've thought a lot about this topic and feel this is the right time to post this with Roy's recent departure. I'm not trying to stir anything up, but I just want legit responses to this question. Before I went away to school in Columbia, I'd lived my whole life in St. Louis. There was no doubt that Missouri was my favorite team, but the Billikens were definitely second at that point. I remember going to the Arena to see Anfernee Hardaway in Grawer's last year and I remember going to CUSA tournament whenever that was in town. I remember many Saturday watching a Tigers' game and a Billikens' game back-to-back often flipping back and forth between the two (or at least checking on the Billikens' game during commercial breaks). I remember all those goofy guys that Spoonhour brought in (Chris Heinrich comes to mind first and foremost) that seemed terrible, but helped win a lot of games. It was a good time to be a local college basketball fan. My time in school at MU coincided with Norm's last year and then obviously Quin. Obviously, Quin's entire tenure can't be remembered very fondly by almost all MU fans except for a few memorable players (Clarence Gilbert and TJ Soyoye come to mind) mostly because of the scandals more than the basketball. I think most MU fans, whether they were happy or not with how things were going in Columbia took a bunker approach towards all outsiders (ie. anyone not MU fans). At least that's what I did. At that point,this was when I really turned against SLU mainly because of what I read on this board. I wasn't happy about the $'s in all the posts and the derogatory remarks about "Boone County Tech" or whatever other terms were used. These times really caused me to view the hardcore Billiken fanbase as really arrogant which in turn caused me to root against them. This was the first year that this was noticeable since SLU actually had really legit aspirations which obviously have not turned out that well. It's been really strange for me to lump SLU in with Duke, UCONN, and Louisville as the teams that I enjoy watching lose. Instead of coming to this board to get updates on how things were, I started coming for my own amusement during the various meltdowns (I'm not saying this is a healthy thing to do, but I definitely took a look for that purpose after the St. Bon and Duquesne games). Sorry for the long buildup here and I'm getting to my point. I felt like I had to explain this to add legitimacy to what I'm saying since I think there are a lot of other St. Louisans in the same boat. I don't really want to dislike the Billikens. I almost feel like I was driven to it (obviously Quin Snyder, Tony Harvey, and Mike Alden, among others also played a part). My question is, does this board feel it should be acceptable to be both a MU and SLU fan? I think most people from St. Louis (casual fan and really hardcore MU fans as well) would want both to succeed. A lot of the negativity from the SLU side comes from the teams not playing and I'm not going to get into that (I would think Mike Anderson will give SLU a shot when he gets his recruits in. Sounds bad, but I think that's just the reality). Honestly, if there was any school in the state that I would want to dislike, it would be SMS due to all the political aspects. There's not much use posting this on Tigerboard because MU fans only care about SLU if they are from St. Louis or live in St. Louis. In my opinion, that's kind of just a fact so that's why I'm only posting this here. I guess all I'm asking for is a little respect. Both universities have different mission statements and both are working toward those different goals the way they should. I would argue with anyone that says both aren't good schools. They just bring something different to the table that works toward the overall goal of educating the state of Missouri. Now that we have a coach with integrity (and hopefully soon after, will have an AD with some), I'd like to think it's possible for both sides (by that I mean everyone from or living in St. Louis) to at least earn respect from each other on the basketball floor and leave the venom out of it. This is really long, but hopefully it's not rambling and argues my point.
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