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When/Why Did You Become A Billiken Fan?


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I was a freshman in 2001. I knew SLU basketball from their two most recent NCAA tournament appearances and because they played Marquette a lot. I went to Marquette University High School in Milwaukee. I bought student season tickets for the 2001-2002 season as soon as they went on sale in fall. I knew SLU was going to be my alma mater, and I wanted to cheer my heart out for my school while I was there. As the season progressed, I acquired a hardhat and hunkered down with my friends, the hardhat crew (to emulate hard hat pat) which was situated right next to the blue crew and used to out-cheer them with only a handful of rowdy guys. I understood that my hardhat crew was at least the second generation. 2002-2003, we tried to continue the tradition, but our numbers dwindled. By 2003-2004, we were pretty much gone. I still wore my hat, but for the first time in 3 years, actually sat in my assigned seat. I graduated in 2005, but I've been a huge Bills fan since 2001 and I'll never stop.

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When I played High School basketball back in New York from 66-70 we used to have a game on how many college basketball games we could pick up. I always was able to get the Bills games on KMOX. They had some great players like Rich Niemann, Barry Orms, Joe Wiley and Gene Moore. Unfortunately they could never put it together. For some off-the-wall reason it reminded me of the team I played on.

Anyway, after reading up on SLU, I decided to enroll in fall of '70 in which I recieved a BS in Social Work in '74 and a MSW in '75. In that time period I don't think you could count on your one hand how many games I missed. Also, I belonged to a little club of friends called the 'Road Show' which we would pile into a car to go to several of the road games. Had a great times going to games at Bradley, Drake, ND, Tulsa, Memphis, etc..

Tarheel

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If you've been in the band, there's no way you can't be a huge fan. I used to get throbbing headaches in the second half of games because of the combination of playing the horn and screaming. Eddie Doherty of Xavier can probably still remember me screaming "stiff alert" at him constantly when he would enter the game. We also used to hide plenty of icy cold ones in a trash bag lined drum case. Things were a little bit more loosey goosey back then and we only had about 20 people in what was actually the music department's jazz band. How could you not love playing and traveling in a bus to conference tournaments and the NIT finals. I still scream just as loud; now I just embarass my kids.

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He's not a fan so he can't answer the question.

I was raised on Billiken basketball. Now a 3rd generation season ticket holder. I was at the games as 3 month old in 1979. Probably my experience was cemented during the Grawer years, when a retired relative of mine was a gopher for the coaching staff which allowed me tons of access to the team when I was 5,6,7,8 years old. Being able to play a little pickup with Pee Wee, Monroe, Roland, AB was one of the highlights of my childhood.

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My uncle who recently passed away and his friends have had season tickets way before i came along. When i was 1 or 2 my uncle and aunt who both went to slu took me to my first game.1990ish I idolizing donny dobbs(i have no reason why). I couldnt get enough of SLU BLUE. The day after Rich Grawer was fired i went to daycare and complained the whole day about how i couldnt believe they got rid of him(like it meant something to the teachers and other kids in daycare) I got to go to my first W Basketball game when i was 7, and a few years later started going to Volleyball games. If you have been to WBasketball or Volleyball, you have probably heard me yelling, and the rest is history

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"I was on fire, I was hotter than a pistol" Jason McElwaine

If theres no SLU basketball in heaven I'm not going!!!!!!

Official Billikens.com Sponsor of Chris Sloan and Billiken Volleyball

and Official Billiken.com Online Video Guy

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I remember watching the old MVC Game of the Week on TV as a kid, with Easy Ed Macauley providing the color commentary. The game came on every week on Channel 2 at 12:30 p.m.

Next I remember watching a DePaul at SLU game at old Kiel Auditorium on TV when STL was hit by a snow storm and the place was virtually empty. And SLU won.

My first in person SLU game was at the old Kiel in 1978. SLU beat Tulane on a Saturday night. I was a high school Senior and making my visit to SLU that weekend. SLU put me up in 2 Clemens, and Ricky Frazier lived across the hall. He was up almost all night after that game jamming.

I thought the old Kiel was a great place to watch college basketball. The students sat in seats on raised ramps in front of the stage, and as Taj noted, the players had to run down the ramps from the stage to the court, right through the SLU students.

I arrived at SLU as a freshman in 1978. My first game as a SLU student was sitting in the North endzone at the old Checkerdome (St. Louis Arena) as SLU beat SIU something like 74-71. A fellow freshman named Willie Horne hit the big shot at the end for SLU.

Like Billiken Roy and Taj, my dormmates and I felt it was our duty to support the Billikens. Like the Marines, we were the few, the proud. We did all we could to be there. What great memories we have of those days.

And my freshman year at SLU also was the last year of SLU hockey. We went to a number of SLU hockey games at the Checkerdome. Hockey was even bigger at SLU before I arrived on the scene. A number of the hockey players lived on my floor on 6G, the old Cellblock 6.

My greatest Billiken memories of all were being there to see SLU victories over Minnesota in Baltimore and UMass in Atlanta in the NCAA Tournament. The Billikens were the talk of the Inner Harbor after beating Minnesota in Round 1 under Coach Spoon.

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>The question is when did you become a FAN? It is easy to be

>a media critic but hard to be a fan!

This question is asked once a month at minimum on this board. Instead of you doing your homework and looking up my replies you immediately respond to my response to Bonwich.

You seem to be pre-occupied with my posts. Just enjoy the board.

I've said repeatedly that my favorite Billikens have been Pee Wee Lenard, Roland Gray, Luther Burden from those eras.

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I first was exposed to Billiken Madness at SLUH as a Junior Billiken. As a freshman at SLU in 1961 I was a walkon on the Frosh team. Mostly rode the bench, but enjoyed practising with the scholarship guys who lived in the dorms while I went home to my parents home in Richmond Hts. every night. I really enjoyed the pregame steak dinners with the team. We played before the varsity every home game in Keil Auditorium and a few road games back then. It was a given that I'd stay a fan every year after that as my friends moved up to varsity.

I left SL after graduating in 1964 and was out of touch until I discovered this website sometime after the millenium. Now I am looking forward to my 50th SLUH reunion in 2010 and seeing the Chaifez Arena and my name on a brick out front.

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My dad played for the Bills before he had to drop out of school for financial reasons. When I was a small boy he took me to Bills and Hawks games. I fell in love with basketball. Bob Pettit was my favorite player.

The Hawks left town and I continued to go to Bills games. When I got to SLU in 1963, I was already a diehard fan. I got to know a lot of the players because I practiced with them almost every day. I loved the games with Rich Parks and Gene Moore battling Wes Unseld. The old valley with Bradley, Tulsa, and Louisville was hard nosed ball at its best. I was at SLU as a student for 7 years--undergrad and law and almost never missed a game. At the old Kiel, we had a student section at midcourt that was first come first serve and me and my buddies always got there early to get good seats.

When I graduated, I purchased season tickets and I have always been near midcourt behind the opposing bench. I have had a huge group of tickets and I will be impacted by the new limits. From Harry Rogers to David Burns to Pee Wee, I was always there to cheer on my beloved Bills. When we recruited Gray, Douglas and Bonner those were the best and the worst years. I loved Gray and Bonner--and Anthony is still my all time favorite player. the pain of losing to Xavier every year was almost too much to bear. We needed Upchurch so bad!

I have a million stories about great games, crazy coaches who wanted to fight me, last minute wins and losses--and trips around the country to see us in the NCAA. Baltimore was a lousy gym but it was great to see us win a game and play tough against the best player in the country.

Claggett, Highmark, Waldman, Dobbs, Hughes, Love, Fisher, Sloan, Lisch, Liddell, and Meyer are all favorites of mine to go along with old timers like Kelvin Henderson, Jim Irving, Joe Wiley, Gil Beckemier, Bevo Nordmann, Gary Garrison, and dozens of others. Go Bills

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Probably the day Grawer was named coach,the whole Stipo/DeSmet thing.Remember writing a letter to Coach Grawer,and he responded with a t-shirt,business card,and personal note,asking me to help spread the word about Billiken Basketball.

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I remember hearing Rich Grawer talk to some students on campus the first summer right after he was hired. He talked about having a SLU Band and putting it right behind the opponent's bench. We hadn't had a real pep band at the games in years.

Grawer resurrected the old Alumni Trumpeteers during those early years at the old Kiel. The Trumpeteers actually played while the game was being played, ala the NBA.

Grawer had West Pine Gym painted, and put up the old banners of the Missouri Valley schools in WPG, even though SLU was in the MCC then. He actually scheduled 2 SLU home games at West Pine Gym, a double OT win over Blackburn College and a 20 point win over Greenville College.

Rich Grawer was the savior of the SLU basketball program. The program had hit rock bottom under Ron Ekker. Grawer brought credibility, and he was able to get some very good recruits too, including Anthony Bonner, Monroe Douglass, and Roland Gray. And he recruited the nucleus of the first two SLU NCAA teams under Spoon, including Erwin Claggett and Scott Highmark. I wish at some point that SLU could honor Grawer.

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Let's see, let's actually factually go back and take a look. I said 10-15 schools all could have defeated another on a given night. You said no. You said the West and South schools couldn't hang with your list of schools.(even though it had already happened with many during the season). Your only exception was Chaminade, who's only common link was being an African American coached team.

Chaminade lost in districts. Hazelwood Central, lost in districts to a 15 loss team. Vashon lost in sectionals to a West Area team. Gateway Tech lost early as well. Also in your list of top area teams, you included smaller class schools, Miller, Berkely, also again losing early in small schools.

4 of the 8 quarterfinal participants in large schools in the state were West or South area STL schools. The only class 4 Final Four participant was a West STL area school. The large school state champion had to go to overtime to defeat a West area school in quarterfinals.

I never made the premise that only a list of African American coached teams with predominantly African American players, could win. I said there was a great deal of parity this year in which many teams regardless of race could defeat another on a given night. The regular season showed that as well.

DeSmet? Okay I'll play along. You should remember that all season long I said DeSmet wasn't as strong as their usual teams this season, but how did they do compared to your list of schools?

Better than: Chaminade, Hazelwood Central, Berkely, Miller, Gateway Tech, and the same as Vashon.

I would have let it go, but you decide to troll and flame in this thread and that wasn't necessary nor once again, well informed.

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Bonwich posts his connections to ND, posts that enjoyed college hockey at SLU a great deal,...the Frozen Four is coming to St. Louis shortly, and Notre Dame has one of best college hockey teams in country this year...I believe Joe said he mourned the loss of hockey at SLU.

Having attended several Frozen Fours, I can say it is a great event and encourage Joe to attend if Notre Dame is there(his ND connection) or even if they aren't.

So if that's name dropping, then I am glad to do it.

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He never said that he was a ND fan or a ND hockey fan. Even if you took that away from his post, all you have to do is mention that ND has a great chance of being here for the frozen four. I believe you were just looking for a chance to throw out the names of Kevin White (ND's AD) and Jeff Jackson (ND's coach). I am sure you know them and are friends with them just like Kevin O'Neill, Bruce Prearl, and the many others that you have posted on here.

I am not sure what the hell it has to do with the posted topic at all. Which I find intresting, because you have in the past critizied other posters for going off-topic in threads.

Maybe you should pitch a plan to ESPN for a Berger Bits, Page 6 type column. Then you could regal the whole country with your tid bits, encounters, dinners, and travels with the sports worlds movers and shakers.

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I watched a few Billiken games with my Dad as a child. The Bills used to get quite a lot of coverage in the old St. Louis Globe Democrat which was the paper that was delivered to our house. I read the sports page in it's entirety all the time. At some point, along about my Junior year in high school I was sitting around watching television on a Saturday afternoon, thinking about possible college choices, and ended up watching the Bills play DePaul. The Billikens rallied to win that game in thrilling fashion. Randy Albrecht was the SLU coach and Ray Myer was coaching the Blue Devils. Months later, when it can time to choose between Illinois State, SIUC or SLU, I picked SLU. There were certainly other factors involved in that decision, but I remembered that game for some reason.I've been a fan ever since, although the team mostly stunk during my years I actually attended classes as a undergrad and grad student. Grawer was just showing up as I was leaving. In fact, he lived in Lewis Hall for a brief period after first taking the job and I had dinner with him on a couple of occasions. BTW, Bay Area, I was at the Greenville game at West Pine. I believe we also played William Penn at the old gym on one occasion. This is a great thread.

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Moved here in '89 from Las Vegas. Watched some Bills games because I was a b-ball fan but didn't become a fan until Claggett joined the program. I loved the way those old UNLV squads ran and shot the ball and Claggett (without the shady background) reminded me of those quick UNLV shooters. Became a huge fan when Las Vegan H Waldman joined the squad.

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