Billiken Basketball Amatuer Hour

[bart]

Bonwich you hit a raw nerve with me with your comment about the ridiculous notion of having a kid shoot baskets qt half tiem t0 win a bike and no one can find a ball. Hello! We are at a basketBALL game! Our basketball game day operation is turning into a JOKE. Let me recap my day. I go to the game a bit late and there are about 250 people at the side entrance I use standing in line. There are 3 turnstiles, 2 of them are turned sideways so the 2 ushers not taking any tickets can lean on them while chatting the whole while. One young girl is taking tickets at the third turnstile. It takes over 10 minutes to get through the turnstile (we may have been some of that group that arrived late). An elderly couple in line behind me who have obviously never been to a bills game say, "boy they must have a big crowd tonight like they used to have in the old days." I say "no, we don't have big crowds any more, the place will be 2/3's empty when you get inside." By the time we finally get to the turnstile and the 2 goldbricking ushers are still chit chatting leaning on the 2 turnstiles the elderly couple say, "gosh this is terrible, now I know why Bill couldn't give these darn tickets away." My sense is they have seen their last Bills game.

I next get to go in and watch a team with a 20 point lead self destruct. By the way, I think the DePaul coach did a great job at halftime. He sure got more of the match ups he wanted in the second half. Then I get to watch a boy pretend to shoot a basketball at half time. I next go out to buy my grandson either a TF, RB, IO, or JJ bills jersey and find our great athletic marketing department (didn't we hire someone new this year in sports marketing?)has done it again. The only bills jerseys in the house for sale - #21 and #4. Thus, no sale. I leave the game, go to a bar with my wife and end up talking to a guy at the bar who has tried to call Woolard off and on all year- he tells me it is impossible. A womans voice answers and gives you her extention #. If you leave a message it is not returned. I remember a post on the board a while back about how the development office isn't ready to discuss the arena fund raising yet. My season ticket $ is going to pay these guys salaries?

[billiken_roy]

i have called or e-mailed doug woolard on a number of occasions and i have ALWAYS had my call or e-mail returned by doug himself. same can be said for jim braun or john garrison.

as to the above story about the long line and only one ticket taker while two other ushers stand about and talk. wouldnt that be a problem with the savvis center? not the billikens. also, the souvenirs at the savvis, (or lack thereof) isnt that also a matter of the savvis not stocking them? i would think our old walmart buddy is to thank for those issues. he doesnt care. he would be glad to see us leave so he can have another tractor pull or shania twain concert instead.

[BillikenButch]

While all of your statements are factually true, as a practical matter any disappointed fan had a bad experience at the Billiken game and may not come back to another Billiken game.

Now of course after reading many of the threads from yesterday the older couple may not feel welcome at the Billiken game, but that is a different matter.

My current beef is with the tagteam of timeout contest hostesses. I thought they were University students and it was some kind of internship (in communications) or a campus job, honing their skills in a friendly, supportive environment.

I was wrong, they are not students. I'd like to know (a) why students are not used and ( if we are going to hire professionals, why don't we hire some with actual skills and who dress like professionals?

[AlumniFan]

Roy, I agree.

I recently sent an e-mail to Doug after a game regarding the bus issue. He called me back by about 9:00 AM the following morning. And there was more follow-up after that.

There is a lot going on at the University right now with respect to development and it is ABUNDANTLY clear that most people on this board are clearly not "in the know". There are public and private phases to all of the University's campaigns. Why? Because the high potential donors need to be personally contacted before the public phase begins as this approach results in much larger contributions than would be received from postcards sent via U.S. mail.

As for the problems with Savvis, they are not the University's fault. However, they are indicative of the reasons, in part, why the school is trying to build and on campus arena.

This board is really great. It is the best forum available to talk Billiken basketball and SLU athletic issues. However, you really need to remember that there is no editor checking peoples' posts for facts. A lot of people make comments without knowing all the details, the reasons, etc.

The University is not perfect and does deserve criticism on some issues, but not every criticism voiced on this board is accurate.

[Billiken Law]

>I next get to go in and watch a team with a 20 point lead

>self destruct. By the way, I think the DePaul coach did a

>great job at halftime. He sure got more of the match ups he

>wanted in the second half. Then I get to watch a boy pretend

>to shoot a basketball at half time. I next go out to buy my

>grandson either a TF, RB, IO, or JJ bills jersey and find

>our great athletic marketing department (didn't we hire

>someone new this year in sports marketing?)has done it

>again. The only bills jerseys in the house for sale - #21

>and #4. Thus, no sale.

Hmmm, Reggie is #21 so you could have bought his hersey. NCAA rules prohibit the sale of products of individual athletes. So you can get a #21 jersey but if is has Reggie's name on it it's illegal Also, this is no different than ANY OTHER SCHOOL. When I was up at Marquette 4 weeks ago the only jersey you could buy was #34 - Diener. Now you can get a #30 (Mason) too but that's it. At Michigan State all you can get is a #15 - Chris Hill. In fact, last time I was in MI I saw jerseys for sale of a player who hasn't been with MSU for 2 years - Marcus Taylor. FYI, both Marquette and MSU are Nike Elite schools - Nike does almost all of their merchandising and provides tons of money to them. No school anywhere is going to sell jerseys of every player on the team. In fact, some schools only sell jerseys with numbers of former players (i.e. Xavier is currently selling #30 jerseys - David West).

As for the Big Shark promotion, someone screwed up and will pay for it. I saw Kosha, the Marketing Director, screaming in anger over the missing basketball.

Finally, the Sports Marketing department is working very hard to improve the product, ticket sales, promotions, etc, but it doesn't happen overnight. Besides, you need a consistantly winning team these days to get more than just the most loyal fans to show up. Plus, you have an athletic department doing the best they can with limited resources from the University.

You did touch on one thing I must criticize for - half time adjustments. Leitao made them, Brad did not. This is the forth or fifth game we've lost when trailing at the half (did we lead @ Memphis?). That is a disturbing trend.