willie Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 I spent 10 hours last night looking for Billilou memorabilia. I stuck out but did find a picture of Rich Grawer on a stick to be used as a mask,a Fallstaff beer mug with SLU Billikens on the glass,a Community Federal beer mug proclaing the Billikens as a Blue Chip,and about 10,000 plastic cups from the Arena and Keil with different Billiken images . Ekker- I know he is devil of Billiken basketball for many. While he was a terrible recruiter I maintain He was not the problem. He had zero administration support. The athletic dept consisted of Ekker 1 full time ast.coach,1 part time coach,Lisa Jaekel as business mgr. and a part time ticket sales guy. Ekker started the golf tournament. He also had a luncheon program called the court club. On the day of the game there was a lunch at the old arena club with the visiting coach as guest speaker. Denny Crum,Abe Lemons,Joe Stoval,Danna Kirk ,are a few speakers I can remember. The guy is still a coach in the NBA so he must know basketball or have good pictures. By the way he and the cheerleader are still married and have several kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 The grave was already dug for SLU, Ekker was just the one who jumped in first. Still dating a cheerleader, getting beaten up before a game by his own player, those are two signs of a poor coach and even poorer person. I will have to figure out the Cavs record since they hired Ekker, but it was very similar to the one he had while coaching SLU. I remember those Rich Grower masks, I still have mine too somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billikan Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 I will never forgive Ekker for his conduct in the last year. the cheerleader thing was a debacle for him personally but on the court I hated to watch him quit on the team. He would sit on the bench and do nothing--no coaching--no cheering--nothing. It got to the point that I was yelling across the floor to try to get him out of his chair. No matter what the circumstances I never can respect a coach who quits. Don't think for a minute that this guy was anything other than a bum! With regard to the court club, I have one distinct memory--The Missouri game!! We were all gathered at the Arena Club for the luncheon and we waited and waited for Norm to appear as promised. After about 45 minutes of waiting Norm appeared and announced to the gathered group that he saw no reason for him to do anything to help SLU basketball gain any credibility so he had nothing to say and stormed out. For the first time in my life I became a Missouri basketball hater and it continues to this day. David Burns went out that night and put on an incredible one man show and the Bills almost upset the Tigers. After that game Norm swore he would never again play the Bills and he never did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willie Posted October 17, 2003 Author Share Posted October 17, 2003 As rude as Norm was,and he was rude I remember Denny Crum being charming. I remember him telling a story about Chickenman and his rubber chicken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schasz Posted October 18, 2003 Share Posted October 18, 2003 Actually, you are right and wrong on some of your takes. I'd agree that Ekker was a horrible HC at SLU. You are right about that game with Mizzou at the Arena being a barn burner. Mizzou was lucky to come out of with a win as Burns did have a nice game. My memory was that both he and Kelvin Henderson got into foul trouble and Bob Mueller had the Billiken game of his career. You are wrong in that Mizzou had agreed to a home and home so we lose a heart stopper in OT at the Arena to the Stipo-Sunvold led Mizzou 77-75 in '79-'80, and then lose to Mizzou at Columbia in the return game the following year 76-58. After that we did not play them until Snyder came along. IMHO Ol Storman Norman was a complete jerk, and I knew many players who played for him and were starters who confirmed my belief. Not at all surprised at your story about him stiffing SLU at the luncheon. He hated SLU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted October 18, 2003 Share Posted October 18, 2003 Funny story my father told me after I was relaying this stuff to him. Ekker had luncheons prior to alot of games at the arena, the opposing coaches would get up and speak, that was why Norm was there, and he did stiff everybody at the luncheon. Anyway at these luncheons they gave you a card before hand to write down a question you had for Coach Ekker, and then he would look over them and answer the questions he wanted to. So the week after the Norm thing Ekker gets up there and reads a question, it went like this-- Did Norm get paid to speak last week, and if so, why? Ekker said "the answer to the first question is yes, the answer to the second question is I have no idea." Also speaking of that game, Kelvin Henderson was the one who missed that final shot, that could've tied up the game. The next year at the awards banquet Kelvin was the MVP. MCing the awards banquet was a guy from TWA, a professional speaker and PR guy, who looked like Bob Costas only smaller and he was a very good MC. Kelvin comes up to accept the award next to this little guy, and the MC goes "Today is a big day for Kelvin, he is a local kid from Kinloch, He gets the MVP award today and earlier the Mayor of Kinloch gave kelvin the key to the city, a bent coat hanger." Everyone laughed including Kelvin, but my father couldn't believe that little guy would make an off color joke like that, much less in front of Kelvin who was like 6'8. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheA_Bomb Posted October 20, 2003 Share Posted October 20, 2003 After hearing that story I dislike them even more than before if that is possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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