DeSmetBilliken

I have said on occasion that in a perfect world I would wake tommorow morning to read that the St. Louis metro area had been annexed into Illinois. Basically that's just because of a combo of things that annoy me about the state of Missouri and the fact that a good portion of my relatives grew up on the Illinois side of the river, so they always talk up Illinois as a wonderful place. I still expect myself to remain on the Missouri side when I get older though.

>ashamed to live in Missouri period. It's strange how that >catholic guilt can manifest itself. First of all, I'm not ashamed to live in Missouri. There are things about the state that I don't like, but I'm not ashamed to live here. Second of all, if you consider living in the state of Missouri as an affiliation, then we are at a misunderstanding. By affiliated with Mizzou, I meant alumni, faculty, fans, and current students, not taxpayers. By the way MUTGR, if I remember correctly, you also have an advanced degree from SLU. Sometimes in your postings here I get the idea that you are ashamed to be affiliated with SLU. Can you explain your relationship with SLU?

If I had heard the interview, I would give you guys a recap. Unfortunately, I was asleep, so I didn't hear it.

Mizzou won't get the NCAA death penalty. I doubt the NCAA will ever hand that down again after the way it destroyed SMU's football program. If what is stated in this article is proven, then I could very easily see Mizzou in a situation like Minnesota a few years ago and Alabama's football program at the current time. If I was affiliated with Mizzou, I would be very ashamed about this. If an investigation is completed and turns up results and penalties in the next year, then I wonder how this would affect the purchasing of seats for Mizzou's new arena.

I'm a student at SLU right now and at this time it looks like I will declare as a marketing major when the time comes. Assuming this happens, I think it would be valuble experience to work with the school and try to come up with ideas to market SLU better. The way I see things is that in the Billiken SLU has a mascot that is unique and should be promoted. Now, with that said, more success would be greatly beneficial, but the Billiken is the kind of thing that would make interesting products bearing its resemblance. One idea I thought of lately was shirt with a Billiken on the front and the question "What is a Billiken?" On the back you put the definition of the Billiken like a dictionary entry. I just got back from an enjoyable vacation out to the West Coast that included visits to the California Wine Country, Monterey, and San Francisco. In between the wine country and Monterey we spent a night in San Jose which is pretty close to Palo Alto, California, home of Stanford University. By the way, Stanford has a ridiculously beautiful campus. Anyway, after we walked around Stanford I decided that I wanted to find a keychain of the Stanford tree mascot to put with one of my Billiken key chains to make a combo of unusual mascots. I wanted it to look like the tree costume that is at Stanford games, not the official logo that just has an outline of a tree. I went to the Stanford bookstore and they had nothing of the like. The only thing close was at Pier 39 in San Francisco when I found a small bean bag version of the tree. I didn't end up buying it because I was looking for a keychain. You can find just about anything else that says Stanford in red or white(not like SLU who seems to sell SLU gear in every color except blue and white), but I still felt that there was a flaw in Stanford's marketing similar to SLU. For the record, I also saw numerous UC-Santa Cruz shirts while out in Cali. For those who don't know, their mascot is the Banana Slug. For a school who I don't think is D-1 they sure seem to market themselves reasonably well with a unique name.

It would make sense considering that Grimes recently verballed to Mizzou, so now the staff would offer the next best area post player. Now that Grimes is out of the picture, it gives SLU more time to devote their attention to players like Shaw, Liddell, Evans, etc.

> > It is a soccer and a rugby term for someone who defends >another player ... usually the other teams main threat one >on one To put this into basketball terms, think Josh Fisher.

It's really been great to see Bill Mueller play as well as he has this season, and for him to do something historic like he did last night is really special. Congrats to him! The Red Sox are my second favorite team behind the Cardinals, and the Sox will be in Oakland playing the A's in the next couple weeks while my family will be in that part of the country. I hope to be able to go to a game to cheer on Bill and his Red Sox teammates. Also, Bill Mueller is on my fantasy baseball team, so needless to say I was rather thrilled about this.

I just read through this entire discussion on soccer and figured that I should post my reply at the end of this thread rather than somewhere in the middle. Anyway, I think Skip was right when he said that most people who enjoy soccer played the game at one time. That would be true for me, as I played for 9 years from Kindergarten to 8th grade. We were pretty good and made the playoffs every year from 5th through 8th grade, with our best finish as coming in 2nd place in the City/County playoffs in 6th grade. I would have liked to continue playing in high school, but the problem was that I wasn't too good. Personally, I love walking over to Hermann Stadium to watch SLU play. I know some people who think watching a soccer game is like watching paint dry, but I also know others who really enjoy the games. I think we all know where different people stand on this issue. And by the way, I don't like the idea of finishing up games in a tie either. Put in at least some overtime period, even if its not sudden death(aka Golden Goal for soccer fans).

Yes, there is a student level for $50 which Roy set me up with. Personally I found it worthwhile just to be able to get into the meetings once a month.

The one cool thing about the astro-turf field was that since SLU moved their games to the Soccer Park, SLU let grade school teams, such as the one I played on, play games there. It was cool playing at a college facility, but we didn't always like the turf. One time the turf was to our advantage was when we beat the defending city champions n the turf, partially because my team prepared for the turf and wore indoor soccer shoes or track shoes, while a good number of the other team's players wore cleats. I'm not a fast runner, but I was blowing by defenders all night.

I can't speak for Roy, but allow me to weigh in on why I have a dislike for Mizzou sports. First of all, my Dad doesn't like Mizzou, so he passed that on to me at a young age. As I have grown up I have been built up that dislike myself, and probably the biggest reason is the arrogance of Mizzou fans who say that since SLU is not as athletically strong as Mizzou, SLU is worthless and deserves no respect(sometimes they also add that since Mizzou is better athletically and that since SLU isn't at the Ivy League level or Wash. U's level, there is no reason for SLU to be given any respect or interest). Let me add one disclaimer though: This dislike is directed at Mizzou Athletics. I have family members who have gone to Mizzou who are very good, caring people who represent the University of Missouri well. Also, some of my classmates at DeSmet who went to Mizzou are good, upstanding human beings. It just is unfortunate that I can't say the same thing about everyone I know who is affiliated with the University of Missouri.

I started going to SLU soccer games during my junior and senior years of high school. Now that I'm a student at SLU living on campus I try to go to as many games as I can. Hermann Stadium is really a beautiful facility, and SLU has almost always had one of the best teams in the country. I'm really looking forward to seeing how good this incoming freshman class will be.

I couldn't have put it any better than you just did, davidlee. For me, SLU offers the ideal opportunity because I can live on campus yet still be close to home. I can come home for a good meal when I get tired of dorm cafeteria food and I didn't have to spend a dime on laundry at SLU since I could take it all home each weekend. This year I didn't have a car on campus, but I could have one of my parents pick me up and bring me home so I could have my car to drive on weekends if I needed it. For me, SLU was ideal. But to each his own.

SLU's teams won 5 team academic awards, including Men's and Women's Basketball. http://slubillikens.ocsn.com/genrel/071003aaa.html SLU Claims Eighth-Straight C-USA Institutional Excellence Award Billikens maintain title as student-athletes post 3.24 GPA in 2002-03. July 10, 2003 ST. LOUIS - Conference USA has named Saint Louis University as the recipient of the Institutional Excellence Award for the eighth-consecutive year. The award is given to the member school with the highest cumulative grade point average during the academic year for all student-athletes in conference-sponsored sports. Saint Louis University student-athletes compiled a 3.24 GPA during the 2002-03 academic year. Saint Louis University has won the award every year of Conference USA's existence. The Sport Academic Award is given to the team in each conference-sponsored sport with the highest grade point average for the academic year. The Billikens won five individual sport honors - baseball, men's basketball, women's basketball, women's soccer and women's swimming and diving. Among the individual sports, Billiken baseball claimed its eighth academic award in as many seasons, while women's soccer and women's swimming and diving posted the highest team GPAs for the second-consecutive year. SPORT RECIPIENT GPA Baseball Saint Louis 3.13 Men's Basketball Saint Louis 2.72 Women's Basketball Saint Louis 3.08 Men's Cross Country DePaul 3.36 Women's Cross Country UAB 3.67 Football Tulane 2.60 Men's Golf Tulane 3.50 Women's Golf Louisville 3.57 Men's Soccer DePaul 3.14 Women's Soccer Saint Louis 3.56 Softball South Florida 3.37 Women's Swimming & Diving Saint Louis 3.37 Men's Tennis South Florida 3.45 Women's Tennis DePaul 3.68 Men's Track & Field DePaul 3.15 Women's Track & Field DePaul 3.47 Volleyball Southern Miss 3.43

Looking at this schedule, it looks like SLU has 3 "buy-in" games. I would say that the Savannah State, Eastern Kentucky, and North Carolina A&T are those 3 games. Yes, SLU did have the same number of games like those last year. The difference was that last year they were spread out and also UT-Martin turned out to not be a patsy. Last year's "buy-in" games were UT-Martin, Texas Pan-American, and Grambling State. This season we have those games as our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd games while last year they were our 1st, 5th, and 7th games. Personally, I would rather play the schedule like this season, because I would rather work out the early kinks against easier teams than against better teams.

SLU's soccer recruiting class was also ranked 3rd by Soccer America. Five of the recruits played in the McDonald's Soccer All American Game and 2 of those guys, John DiRaimondo and Brian Grazier, have been playing against the best talent of their age level in the world while playing on the US Junior National Team. I am excited to see this team in action this fall.

>i bet desmet's coach bob steiner was >somewhere saying, my god, i wish i could have seen some of >that play when we were losing to teams like chaminade, >parkway central and ash grove and sluh. and losing our >district championship game by 25 points. I couldn't have said it any better myself. Keep listening to those talking streets, P Diddy.

While Kent Williams did have a great career at SIU, there is no way that in hindsight I would have taken him over Maurice Jeffers or Marque Perry. You could say that in hindsight SLU should should have gone with Williams over the late Vincent Hart, considering that Hart never wore the SLU uniform, but Hart was an inside player and rather highly regarded, so at the time it made more sense for SLU to go with Jeffers, Perry, and Hart. Now, onto Ahearn. Congrats to him on a great game last weekend and I wish him luck at SMS. At first I would have liked to have seen him sign with SLU because I would have liked to have seen a DeSmet grad play for SLU, but my mind changed after this past basketball season. While I only saw 1 DeSmet game this season, the game I saw was a microcosm of the entire season. For those who don't know, DeSmet had a very talented team that significantly underachieved, and the most common reason that I heard was that the team lacked heart. In the game I saw, a more talented DeSmet lost to a SLUH team that clearly wanted it more. By the way, that last statement was made by quite a few people who also saw the game. I saw Blake get outhustled, shoot poorly, and play poor defense, as did most of the rest of the team. As the season went on, I continued to hear that this team had no heart, which is inexcusable. Since Blake was the star and had been playng varsity since the end of his freshman year, he should have been the emotional leader of that team, which clearly needed a leader. I graduated from DeSmet in 2002, and the seniors on the basketball team that year didn't have the most talent, but they were great leaders and ended up leading a team that didn't make the preseason rankings to a second place finish in the state. I'll admit that I don't know much about Clarke, but I do have some concerns about Ahearn's play, and maybe his heart. Plus we did need a player to play the wing, as Clarke is supposed to be capable of doing. I hope Blake does well at SMS, but I can't say that I'm too depressed by the fact that he isn't coming to SLU.

I must say that Joel Shelton is an interesting story. He was Mr. Basketball in Missouri and a 1st Team Juco All-American, yet no college seems to want him on their team. I guess that's what happens when you are 5-9 and only play the 2-guard position.

I agree that Lids is without a doubt the best place to buy hats anywhere. That's why I'm happy that they have an actual store in the West County Mall. I have some advice for those who shop there reasonably often. Join the Passport Club. I think it costs $5 and you get 20% off hats and 10% off on accessories until the end of 2005. It works at either Lids or Hatworld and can be used on the internet as well. I'm looking at my two SLU hats I bought from Lids and they are not the Lids brand. One is a blue fitted hat with the Billiken on the front and SLU on the back and the other is a white "one size fits all" with a smaller Billiken on the front and Billikens above it. Both of the hats are made by Zephyr, which can be found at www.zhats.com. I've seen numerous people wearing both hats around campus, and know I've seen the white one in stores besides Lids.

You are probably thinking of Lids, which does have a small store in West County. It also has kiosks in most of the other malls in the area. I have found a few nice SLU hats there, and yes Roy, one of them is Billiken blue with a great picture of the Billiken on it. As for the bookstore and decals, the best SLU decals I have seen were on different cars but never in the bookstore. Mine is in the shape of a square and I believe it has the fleur de lis (official symbol of SLU) and says Saint Louis University all over it. I got it because it was the smallest one they had at the time. Recently my parents and my grandmother wanted decals, so went searching for decals for them, but they had a supply slightly better than the one Roy described. On numerous occassions I have gone to the bookstore looking for "SLU Mom" shirts, but they have always either been out or had them in something like XXL, so I have left frustrated. This winter I went looking for a winter hat to keep my head warm while I'm walking around campus. Nothing. And don't get me started about the way the bookstore rips the students off on book returns at the end of a semester. Students have a good level of hatred for the bookstore in that regard. I'm hoping it will improve with the opening of the renovated Busch Center, but I'm not too sure it will. I think the problem is two fold: 1) poor marketing at SLU and 2) I think that Barnes & Noble, who runs the bookstore, doesn't really care about the SLU merchandise. I have a friend from high school who works there, so I'll have to ask him about the poor selection. Also, I think I saw that SLU hired a new director of marketing straight from the C-USA office. Maybe she will improve SLU marketing. If not, as of now it looks like I will be majoring in marketing, so I could be taking care of the problem in a few years.

"He talks about DeSmet too much" You can never talk about DeSmet too much.

I'm not suggesting that this was good information, I just found it shocking and felt that I needed to pass it along.

Sorry, I meant to post the link the first time around but forgot to do so. http://www.collegesports.com/nbadraft/top150.html