STLfan Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Looking at our old attendance in 1987 the attendance jumped up to over 6,000 a game. Since then it has only fallen below 6,000 one time and that was the year after. I was kind of surprised that ony about 20 years ago we were ony averaging between 2 to 3 thousand a game. 1978 - 3,418 1979 - 3,910 1980 - 4,451 1981 - 2,611 1982 - 2,872 1983 - 2,316 1984 - 1,978 1985 - 2,630 1986 - 3,797 1987 - 6,113 1988 - 5,658 1989 - 6,281 1990 - 6,982 1991 - 6,993 1992 - 7,697 1993 - 8,591 1994 - 13,008 1995 - 17,714 1996 - 16,986 1997 - 13,732 1998 - 17,708 1999 - 15,142 2000 - 13,631 2001 - 12,212 2002 - 11,598 2003 - 9,232 2004 - 8,918 2005 - 8,030 And of course a little over 9,000 so far this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nebraska_Bob Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Monroe Douglas and Roland Gray and they were fun to watch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheeseman Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 The other big jump was when Spoon was here but you can easily see that when SLU has gotten the big time local recruits, the fans come out. Highmark and Clagget when Spoon was here and Gray and Douglass when Grawer were here. Truth be told, I am begining to think that 10k will be fine for the new arena. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdog Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 I believe a gentlemen by the name of Bonner also donned the Billiken Blue at that time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheeseman Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Yes but he was only one - I was commenting on what happened when the local duos came. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBand Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 help me out, but didnt Anthony Jones come in that year as well with Bonner. He was an all metro player as well. Sorry, I dont have my media guide in front of me to check. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Anthony Jones was a prop 48 so he would have sat out his freshman year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trich Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Did you ever hear of Ron Ecker? He almost ruined the basketball program singlehandedly. In the 50's and 60's attendance at Kiel was near capacity at times. In the 70's the program was allowed to deterioate and then Ecker almost ruined it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiken Rich Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Other than Spoon and Brad and MAYBE Grawer, I bet he gets more mention on this board than any other Billiken coach. He our own Wrong Way Corrigan or our Leaning Tower of Pisa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 I'm figuring that the attendance quoted here is for the school year 1986-87. Douglas and Gray were freshmen in the 1985-86 campaign. Bonner came in a year later. So the season this is marking is the sophomore years of Gray and Douglas and the freshman year of Bonner. In that year, the Bills went 18 and 12 and finished second in the MCC. With the big three in local recruits, coming off a successful year of just Gray and Douglas, the stage was set. that year was also the senior years of Jim Roder, a local DeSmet boy come home from Kansas State, and Redditt Hudson, an undersized 6'8" center from U City. Jones was a prop 48 and did not play that year. So you had an entirely local starting five, coming off a fine season, with a diamond in the rough no one knew we had in AB. That team ended up 25 and 10; with its longest losing streak being two games. they started out 7 and 0 and then moved to 13 and 1. They, of course, smacked into the wall against X in the old MCC tourney as we always did but the front running fans of St. Louis were following a local group winning quite well. Assuming again that the 1994 numbers are for the `1993-94 year, that was Claggs and Hmarks junior year when H Waldman became eligible. We started out 14 and 0 on our way to 19 and 1 and I think that is the year we got up to #17 nationally. The national media became enamored with Spoon and his legend from the Ozarks went big time. Again, it helped to have a team centered on local talent, with a local (Missouri) coach , coming out the gates hot and staying that way. Their senior year the next year, was even better. Plus a win in the NCAAs and a creditable loss to Tim Duncan and his Wake Forest team and it wasn't as lost a season as some might take it to be with a season-ending loss. Rather, the hope was fired up like hell. The following year carried that on in what I would call the typial trickle down effect, then there was a down year and Spoon lands Hughes for his one and done and then the bottom fell out. Since Hughes' freshman year, you can see a continued trend downward as far as attendance is concerned but I suspect that will upturn at the end of this season. Again, an above average team record wise with local talent to get behind and cheer. I've sat in the wings here and waatched the great debate over the new size of the Biondidome and been quiet. I think 10K is a good number ..... if we continue to wins and improve ... and that's a big IF .... then 10K will no doubt become a littel too small. But I think that if we ever get so huge that games need to be moved for TV or whatever, let the Savvis pay back through the nose for us moving those game. I think the 10K will do quite well for the Billiken faithful. Baby steps first and then lets see where the cards may fall. I'm all for making the Bills a tough ticket in town but what I really want is the home court advantage a noisy pit brings, along with the fact that all current and future Bills can get a key to the gym and shoot around all they want if they have the time. kind of like those Gonzaga stories with Dickau and some others. My thoughts on a home court ADVANTAGE appear closer to reality than dreams. Will it all work out the way I want it? Heck no ... we're the Billikens, remember? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheltiedave Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Polk was a pretty good coach, from what I remember. The city PHL was still a dominant league, and Polk had the luxury of picking up many of the best players. Deseg really killed the school traditions, and PHL talent vanished. Randy Albrecht was no prize after Polk, Ron Coleman was a one and done disaster hired from Vashon, and then Ecker came in and worked his magic. If Fr. Drummond? had his way, we would have bumped down to DII except for soccer, due to a disasterous balance sheet. Frs. Reinert, Fitzgerald, and McGannon managed to pull the university back from the brink, and Biondi has maintained the momentum with the endowment and physical infrastructure of the university. Biondi is now turning his attention to the athletics side of the formula. Hopefully he can stem the slide of the soccer team, and get the bball program to a consistentent top 20 level, and restore the soccer team to a top 5 level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Going to Cincy in a few weeks??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjray Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Nice post taj, lays out the history nicely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willie Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Everybody blames Ecker for almost killing Billiken Basketball. Ecker was terrible but he wasn't the reason we almost died. It was the administration. The school was bleeding money in those years,we had astronomical short term debt during a period of very high interest rates. The administration didn't know whether they wanted to be division 1-2 or 3. The athletic department consisted of about 5 people. They hired Ecker because he came cheap. Hell they even made him AD to save money. We came very close to becoming a division 3 program. Blame Ecker if you must but the real demons were Drummand and O'Connell. Fitzgerald fixed our finances and thank God Biondi came along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBand Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 right, so he was part of that local recruiting class with Bonner. Didnt get to play right away though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlecat455 Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 I believe it was Ron Ekker and somehow he got cheating with teams that averaged under 10 wins per season. In addition to Douglass, Gray, Bonner and Jones, the '87 team included locals, Jeff Luechtefeld and John Duff and Melvin Robinson followed shortly thereafter. Those were heady days coming off the Ekker disaster. God Bless Rich Grawer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willie Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Ekker got caught cheating by working with Latodd Johnson during the offseason. He was working on his freethrow shootin. He was turned in by an assistant soccer coach who was pissed at Ekkers roll as AD.I'm not trying to defend Ekker but it was another example of the NCAA beating up on the weak and doing little to the Kentucky's of the world who get caught buying players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicCityBilliken Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 If you really want to go back, I believe when they hired Buddy Brehmer, things went down hill and never really fully recovered till Spoon, which Grawer layed the ground work for. He coached from 65-69. Buddy, similiar to Grawer, knew how to recruit. Had PSL and Catholic League players like Rich Neiman, Jimmy Irving, Barry Ohrms and Gene Moore. Many of these players had careers in the NBA and ABA. He just could not coach them and had very disappointing seasons. Another thing, like Ekker, he had many off-the-court problems. When Polk came in, he definitely won games but for numerous reasons fans never took to him. Subsequently, after one bad year he was history. Then came the dark ages of Billiken basketball, this coincided with our admission to the Metro (SLU was known as the the Duquesne of the Metro Conference and I know the league was darn glad to see us go) and a string of bad coaches (Ekker, Coleman and Albrecht). Then, as mentioned earlier, thank God for Rich Grawer. He settled things down and brought respectability back to Billiken basketball. We came very close on being a Div 2 or NAIA program (similiar to Loyola-New Orleans) and playing our games in the West Pine Gym. It is ashame the University and Grawer cannot come to some agreemant on some sort of recognition. He definitely deserves it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trich Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 My wife and I will be there. I am looking forward to a long run into the tournament. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trich Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 I agree that the university administration was letting the program deterioate and I may have been placing too much blame on Ecker but he was the pilot or driver who almost took the program over the cliff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willie Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Grawer is in the hall of fame. I do agree I wish things were better between the 2. He is still very bitter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willie Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 agreed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 To me, Rich will always be the savior of the program that these kids know today. Without his preseverance, we'd probably be losing the battle to Wash U and UMSL across town. I still remember the anxious moments right before we got Monroe and Roland to sign on the dotted line. It was still a toss up right to the pen-and-ink. But in the true, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately-Taj79 style, I thought his firing and dismissal were warranted. It was clear that he had burnt out pretty badly in those ten years at the helm. Maybe the firing could have been done in some way that face was saved .. maybe somewhere in the program .. but then others might say better to give Spoon a clean slate. Without Grawer, there is no Claggs, no Hmark, no Spoonball, no Hughes, no Miracle in Memphis, no Greek god, and no TL or KL. Amen to Saint Rich. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willie Posted February 22, 2006 Share Posted February 22, 2006 I consider Rich a friend,and yes it was time to go but SLU handled it terribly. It made the Alden fiasco look like a perfect ending. Biondi drug it on forever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bay Area Billiken Posted February 22, 2006 Share Posted February 22, 2006 As far as I am concerned, Rich Grawer was the savior of the Billikens and the SLU Basketball Program. Grawer literally started from Square 1 and built the program, step by step. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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