Question for our older forum members

[Box and Won]

Back in the dark days, the Ekker days, was attendance ever as bad as it was at Duquesne the other night?

Seriously, they need to be dropped from the conference ASAP.

[bonwich]

The only time we ever had attendance that low was one evening when there was an ice storm. I seem to remember that there were fewer than 100 people there that night.

[cheeseman]

No - even when Grawer took over, SLU had a season ticket base of 2500-3000 if I remember correctly.

[billiken_roy]

worse. plus keep in mind the arena sat about 18k. so on the nights we had like 100 fans, that was sad. plus it was always cold from the ice. just miserable.

i still remember playing soon to be national champ, louisville, and everyone in the building had a front row seat. that was sad.

[billiken_roy]

ekker days were that bad.

[shempie]

I remember a late season Sat. or Sun. afternoon game circa 1981 against VT at the Checkerdome with 300 to 400 people. It was beautiful day outside and no one came. We had a T called against us when a fan threw coins on the court. I would like to say I was only 2 at the time, but alas, it was the end of my freshman year.

[willie]

In Rich's first couple of years when we were back at the Old Kiel crowds reguarly were down around 1200. You could have converstions with friends a couple of sections away.

[GMan Alum]

The crowds were indeed that bad! Our baseball coach was the ass't AD and he used to turn the attendance figures in. He would look up at the sparseness of Kiel with about 200 people in the stands and say, "I guess there's about 1500 here tonight, don't you think?"

[Bay Area Billiken]

It was bad, but I don't remember attendance being quite as bad as the other night at Duquesne, unless there were extenuating circumstances. That being said, the announced attendance Ekker's last year for a game against then #1 ranked DePaul of Coach Ray Meyer was 3,200. As I recall the announced attendance figures were always over 1,000, but sometimes the veracity of those figures was questioned.

What Duquesne is going through now reminds me a bit of what SLU endured in 1981-82, Ekker's last year.

We sat on the floor on the baseline right next to the opponent's bench. I remember students yelling at Coach Denny Crum of Louisville to put perennial bench warmer Marty Pulliam into the game. The Louisville players on the bench were cracking up. Crum persisted in keeping on the full court press.

I remember one Friday night against the then North Texas State, whose coach, when asked what he thought about the Checkerdome (Arena) exclaimed, "You could put a lot of hay in this barn."

[Iggy]

I remember a couple of games being played at the West Pine Gym. I believe it was my freshman year ('83-'84). I think Butler was one of the games and Oral Roberts may have been the other. (Not positive). This was early in the Grawer era when most games were played at an empty Kiel Auditorium.

[billiken_roy]

there is no way that one year in the checkerdome we had a single game over 1000 people for a game imo.

[Bay Area Billiken]

I remember those games. They were against Blackburn College and Greenville College, during Rich Grawer's first year, as I recall. The Blackburn game went into at least one OT and possibly 2 OT's, and SLU ultimately prevailed. The Billikens took care of Greenville with ease.

Please don't ask us about McKendree College my Junior year during Year 3 of Ekker.

[willie]

Pau Jansen a deep bench warmer came into the Blackburn game and started hitting deep jumpers to pull out the game. He probably scored more points that game then he did the whole season.

[bonwich]

I'm pretty sure the low point was Grawer year 1, 1983-4.

"Attendance at Billikens basketball games has plunged in recent years; this past season, only 29,664 attended the 15 St. Louis U. home games, an average of 1,978. The Bills had, by far, the worst attendance in the Midwestern City Conference."

[Bay Area Billiken]

Those two battles at West Pine Gym against Blackburn and Greenville actually occurred in the '84-'85 season, which would have been Year 3 of the Rich Grawer Era, and the year before the Billikens turned the corner the next year.

Another game I will never forget was a 45-42 victory at UMSL in one of those early Grawer years. We were out there at the Mark Twain Building rooting on our Billikens.

[slu72]

wasn't there during Ecker years. Late 60's and early 70's it wasn't great, sometimes the old arena would appear empty, but would guess we always had around 4,000. Of course Bob Polk had the team playing pretty well back then. Believe it was 70-71 we moved back to Kiel and can remember a couple of games Memphis and Louisville where it was plus +10k.

[GMan Alum]

In 70-71 SLU was tri-champs with Louisville and Drake. Harry Rogers, Carlos Martinez, Mike Lockett, Bob Wade, Bill Paradoski - nice squad that had some great crowds. The Bills never quite reached those heights (crowds or wins) for quite a few years. Some of those mid-70's attendance figures were awful except for the traditional Memphis and Louisville games.

[MusicCityBilliken]

I remember the game that tied for the Valley title in the 70-71 season, it was against Bradley and we drew close to 15,000.

When we moved to the old Kiel (great student section) except for ND, Louisville and Memphis the crowds were never that great. Both Louisville and Memphis came in with a lot of fans. Maybe 3000-4000 on a week day and 5000-6000 on a weekend. I always thought that was ashame because those 71-72 and 72-73 teams had been very good with Harry Rogers being one of the leading scorers in the country.

[davidlee]

It is hard to believe it is over 30 years since Harry played. He was a very special talent. He could do it all. I know he is my favorite Billiken BB player.

[Bay Area Billiken]

I remember somebody throwing coins too. With virtually no one there, you could literally hear the coins bouncing on the court's wood.

We would also sometimes sit behind the opponent's bench. You could hear the opponent's coach in timeouts. Tulane Coach Roy Danforth once implored his Green Wave to "watch that Miscarriage (Dick Missavage) guy. He can shoot."

My freshman year, defending National Champion Marquette played SLU at the Checkerdome (Arena) on a Saturday night. Marquette brought at least some of its band. At the time SLU had no band, but had Ernie Hays high above in the rafters playing the organ. Marquette routed us that night. That Marquette band was playing the Marquette fight song afterwards, trying to rub it in, but Ernie Hays cranked up the volume on the organ in response, playing "When the Saints Go Marching In," and drowned out the Marquette band.

Those were the days. Has SLU ever come a long, long way since then.

[thetorch]

My father always would say if the game was going bad he would sit and count the people in attendance. It would only take a couple minutes.

[MusicCityBilliken]

Too bad Harry didn't have a 3 point line.