Funny how easy that is when you have someone competent in charge.
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Man, I'm excited about basketball this season! GO DAWGS!!
Pop. It looks like you joined the board in January 2019 and made your first post in 2024 in a thread that petered out in 2013.
What’s up with that?
Sure wish we had picked something more like Foster Pavillion at Baylor when FJ got mad at the Fire Marshall. Theirs is 7500 seats. We could have built a close quarter 6500 seat arena and it wouldnt feel empty today.
We pack it for what were once graduation "ceremonies". Never seen it packed out for anything else.
The only times the TAC was truly packed, that I experienced, were some Lady Techsters games, and the 1985 SLC tournament we hosted with Malone & Company. We had other large crowds for both MBB and WBB, but there were always some empty blue seats, high up. Great crowds for Ruston, but not completely full. I have seen a few "standing room only" crowds too, which had the fire marshal been there....well, maybe he was there, just sporting the red & blue and cheering on Tech!
I attended in 77-81. I often recall to others that during this time, if a MBB game started at 7:30, to sit on the floor at old Memorial Gym, you just had to get there around 7:10 or so. However, if you wanted to attend the WBB game, and sit on the floor, we would start lining up outside Memorial Gym between 3:30 and 4pm. Most of the time, we would be talking to friends, hanging out, and even occasionally, taking books to do homework. But you definitely had to be there early to get a seat. From there, it would be packed and so loud for the WBB, the refs would blow their whistle and play would continue because the players couldn't hear it. Such great memories............ when the HC of SFA would walk on the court, the Tech band would play "The old gray mare". The coach would just die laughing. Back then, it would Old Dominion that was likely our biggest rival. I remember my dad and his friends would actually drive from Shreveport to go to a game, and it was only for the experience as in truth, they weren't that big of basketball fans. But he and his friends would meet us after the game, take us to eat, and we would just talk about how loud it was in the gym for the entire game. Those were fun times back then, and oh how I wish we would get back to that.......... but sad to say, won't likely happen.
Oh yes! I remember the night Delta State came to Ruston. They were a real powerhouse in the early days of WBB, mid-70's. Lots of DSU fans made the trip over from Mississippi, probably a good 100+ or so and old Memorial was packed to the rafters. Techsters blasted Delta State by 30 pts, something like 95-65 and we never looked back.
Sue Gunter, LSU's coach commented on our cheering squad, which we dubbed ourselves "The Ambassadors of Harassment" after Gunter's comments in the paper referring to us, she said: "if those guys were ambassadors for the US, we'd be at war with every nation on Earth." We took that as a compliment. We made a Nebraska player cry and walk off the court...we did! Didn't limit our abuse in WBB, we were even rougher at men's games. A UNO player charged at us and had to be restrained by his team mates and security guards. An Arkansas State player hurled a basketball at us and got rung up with a "T." We were asked to tone it down or we would be escorted out...
Fond memories...:shocked2:
Hey, Wednesday night games, Saturday AFTERNOON games just don't provide the best opportunities for our 70-mile radius crowd to attend hoops games.
Thursday nite & Saturday nite games presented the best opportunity.
I never missed a single home game during the Malone years, made some road games too. I made most of the home games after Malone left, from 1986-1991, we were still very good, and I was still young enough to make the 140+ mile roundtrip over lousy roads at night. Tried to make at least 7-9 home games most years even during the leaner years. But now, it's a chore to drive at night, even if I take Hwy 84 to Winnfield and use Hwy 167. Now with the games on ESPN+ I prefer to sit home in front of my 81-inch big screen TV (I see there's a 95-incher out...hmmm.) stay safe and enjoy the games.
If I lived closer, especially like in the Monroe area, all interstate, I'd make more games in person.
Go Dawgs!