sonoma bob

I met Justin the summer before he became a Billiken at the San Francisco summer league when I saw his school listed in the program as SLU. I introduced myself as an alum and we became friends. I also enjoyed sitting in the stands at Keira with his parents for his games for a few years until he graduated and moved on to international competition. His family was wonderful and one year when his team won the league and he was named MVP I was talking to him and a guy came up and took this photo. I asked him to send me a copy and gave him my business card. Several weeks later this photo arrived in an envelope from Italy! I am saddened to hear this news and wish his family my dearest condolences.

When I was a senior in high school, I was given a whistle and stiped shirt and told to ref a frosh game with another HS. It didn't take long to figure out how hard it was. I think the other ref was a classmate too. We finished the game with no problems from the coaches, so I guess we did a decent job. Parents didn't come to freshman games back then so we didn't have any outside pressure like now. At SLU I reffed a intermural game. A frat vs. another frat. A guy took a swing at me and missed after I called a fowl on him. My reacion was to swing back and I caught him right below his eye. That was the end as far as I remember. I saw him 30 years later at an alumni pre game party when the Bills were out here. He reminded me of that incident and told me he almost got kicked out of school because of it. I had totally forgot about him and was glad it didn't ruin his young life. I still hollar at the refs when I'm at a game, but poliely now.

I grew up in Richmond Heights, went to Little Flower, SLUH, and along with about 1/3 of my classmates to SLU. I look back and it seemed like 8 years of high school. I walked on to the freshman team in '60-61, made lots of new friends then. The dominant team then was the soccer teams, they won the NCAA title every year. The basketball team had it rough in the old MVC with Cincinnati , Witchita St., Bradley, etc. were all great teams then. I left SL upon graduation in '64 but still stay a faithful fan to Alma Mater. I don't understand why having the only D-1 team in town, SLU isn't more dominant, since the Hawks moved to Atlanta there is no hoops competition like there was back then.

I think it depends where you live. Here in the Bay Area all Warriors games not on the big networks are carried on CSN in high def with a superb announcing crew and great pre and post game analysts. A lot of non hoops fans watch because of the quality of the home team and the broadcasts. I will always be a Billiken, so I continue to look here, but the few games I have seen broadcast look like high school in comparison. I am as optomistic as all of you that the future will be better with Coach Ford. Has the new president of SLU made any difference in support?

Is StlToday kidding? I enjoy keeping up with news from my old hometown to a point. Paying to do it is way past that point. Get serious, you are not the PD I grew up with. Goodbye.

From Russia with Love.....a great James Bond movie memory. I couldn't find an English translation button on any of the torch's links. But I hope if he leaves Odessa he comes home to San Francisco to play in the Summer Pro-Am League again. He was also MVP there several years ago. www.sanfranciscoproam.com

My old stomping ground has gotten gentrified. My brothers and best friend went to M-RH, and I used to drink and play pool at the VFW Post on Big Bend & Hiawatha when I went to SLU. Cards SS Marty Marion lived a few doors down from there on Hiawatha back then when they had real jobs in the winter. We lived on Lindbergh Dr. when the trolley ran down the parkway into the city.

BK said in his book that he wanted JC to succeed him at IU. I assume they are still pretty close. With BK you never know.

One more piece of advice sir. Do not go too far north of the campus in the City or the County of Saint Louis.

Dr. Gunnie, let us know how the visit went when you get home. You got some good tips here.

The Fabulous Fox theater is just a short walk up Grand Ave. away from the College Church which is also worth a visit. The Best Steak House mentioned earlier is across Grand Ave from the walk. It is a thrifty but surprisingly good place to eat that has been there since I was an undergrad in the early 60's. Not as new or fancy as the other places recommended that have opened since the Arena brought more folks to the neighborhood. Your 8 year old will enjoy the museum underground below the arch run by the NPS describing the westward expansion. The little one will be awestruck when he looks up at the arch. Tell them about pioneers heading west by crossing the river before bridges were there. Have fun.

It was an OK read, not as good as Feinsteins "Season on the Brink" Knight tells his side of the IU story, sounded very biased. He goes on and on about his fishing and hunting buddies, who cares? It ends after his first year at TT. I'm old enough to remember the whole story all the way back to his playing days, so that part was interesting. Good this he did not name JC as his successor, we would not have him today.

Speaking of Dakish and Saunders, I thought they were terrible. I never heard them talk about substitutions. They talked about unrelated stuff for too much of the time. At least Dakish showed his Hoosier colors talking about Coach Crews as I expected. By the way I recently read BK & Bob Hammel's book "Knight: My Story. BK said he wanted JC to replace him at IU, but his departure did not leave him the opportunity to have any input. He thought JC was doing a great job at Evansville and could recruit the state as well as IL and OH very well. We are seeing that with Billiken signees.

Observation from my couch at 8 AM yesterday. A great win in a tough place and time to win. We were in control the whole game it seemed and the announcers kept saying because we didn't put them away the odds were 90% the home team would come back and win in the end. We beat those odds and the 3 point underdog role we were given before the game by the smart guys in Las Vegas. The only thing that kept my stomach in knots was the amount of second and third chances Dayton kept getting all game long. Some were long rebounds from 3 point bricks they threw up, but a lot were us just getting beat on the boards. I checked the box score and total rebounds were even but they got 15 offensive rebounds to our 6. It seemed worse than that while watching. I like this team a lot and think we will go a long way this year. We have to work a bit more on boxing out is all.

Party at the Dudes house for the Final Four