Swampy Meadows
01-25-2009, 10:04 PM
BEVERLY HILLS (MI) –- I have been watching UD basketball for over 40 years and boys and girls I have never, ever seen a display of dunkability like the Flyers performed in the early minutes of the 2nd half against the Bonnies.
Never. Ever.
-- When Mrs. Swampy and I were undergrads, the UD cheerleaders had a simple cheer that went like this:
“It’s hot...it can’t be stopped…it’s Flyer Fever.”
A lot of people lately have been trying to figure out why is it that we are so devoted to this team? Is it really a disease that “can’t be stopped?”
I addressed this very subject over 8 years ago, in one of my early “FTS” efforts for the old FlyerHoops.com website entitled “Why We Care”:
“As we ride the rollercoaster with the Boys in Red and Blue through the ups and downs of another season, that’s a question I find myself asking, not only of myself, but of everyone who posts on this board: why do we care so much?
After a game, Mrs. Swampy usually inquires “So, how did your classmates do?” Her way of busting my chops for following intently the exploits of a group of young men who are (at the time) only slightly older than our eldest daughter.
What is it that sends me to the PC to listen to Larry and Bucky over the net?
Why do I scour the internet for any HS phenom who lists ‘Dayton’ as one of many schools he includes in his laundry list of college options?
What possesses me to write a semi-regular column on my dime about a team I get to see in person maybe once a year, if I’m lucky?
Like a lot of the younger posters, I used to live and die with the Flyers and took each loss personally.
I have moved beyond that. Age and kids will do that to you.
I now realize the outcome of the game does not depend on whether I am listening or not. As Mrs. Swampy likes to say “They’re gonna have to find a way to win without you, Hon.”
What I believe keeps me interested in the Flyers is the connection I’ve established over the years with the team. As much as Mrs. Swampy likes to razz me about following the boys, she used to be a pretty rabid fan herself when we lived in Dayton and saw them beat Notre Dame at the Arena and stayed up late to see the Flyers eventually lose to UCLA in three overtimes.
Donald Smith’s sweet lefty fall away jumper…Jimmy Paxson’s back-door cuts…waiting all night for tickets to games at the Fieldhouse…seeing Chris Daniels play one of his last games in Pittsburgh.
Stuff like that accumulates over the years in your mind’s attic and it never gets put on the table at the garage sale—it stays locked up there.
Time can’t disconnect it; the O’Brien years couldn’t sever it.
The connection I have, that we all have, with the Flyers is there and will remain there until I don the dirt suit.”
-- I always like to glance over and see what the current high for most users on the UD Pride MB is –- it’s listed on the left hand column, under the navigation bar. As of this writing the record tally stands at:
Most users ever online was 479, 01-23-2009 at 02:48 AM.
Bear in mind that the time indicated is 5 hours ahead of EST, so in reality it was 9:48PM on Thursday the 22nd...so it was collective sigh of relief right after the G-Dub game that warranted that kind of traffic.
C’mon, we can break 500 sometime this season, can’t we?
-- As I was cruising up Lakeshore Drive in Chicago after work last week, I drove past Foster Beach Park where I played some pickup ball over the summer. In case you missed it, here’s a link:
http://udpride.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5811
Anyway, out there under the lights were a couple of kids who had shoveled off half of the slab and they were shootin’ hoops in the relatively balmy mid-30 degree temps. When is the last time you saw that? We used to do that all the time when I was a kid at the playground up the street back in Leominster, MA.
-- Chris Cage will get a kick out of this one: my new car has Sirius/XM satellite radio and one of the rock channels is called “Deep Tracks.” On my way home to Michigan from Chicago I heard a really deep one -– “Home Again” by Batdorf and Rodney.
Somewhere, Tom Weiser, owner of the long-departed Forest Books and Records on Wayne Avenue is smiling. Anyone who attended UD in the early ‘70s and/or listened to WVUD back then knows what I am talking about. Weiser hyped the living crap out of B&R on FM 100 to the point that they got regional and national airplay.
-- Amazingly enuf, John and Mark reunited in 2007 to play together again! Here are links to a couple of websites devoted to Batdorf and Rodney:
http://johnbatdorfmusic.com/index.html#jbwords
http://batdorfandrodney.tripod.com/indexframe.html
-- As I was tooling along I-94 in northern Indiana listening to an extended Batdorf & Rodney guitar solo, I looked off to the right and saw two horses in a big farm corral running in the snow. It could have been Montana or Colorado or wherever, but they were right there with me in Hoosierland. Kinda cool.
-- How would you like to be making a hoops comeback at the age of 16, after having first dunked at age 8 and getting written up in Sports Illustrated at 14? Allow me to introduce you to Demetrius Walker:
http://hsi.pe.com/pages/centerpiece/stories/walker.html
-- The definition of divided loyalties: watching George Mason play VCU on TV and hoping GM wins to help UD’s RPI, while at the same time pulling for Anthony Grant’s kids to do well.
That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com
Never. Ever.
-- When Mrs. Swampy and I were undergrads, the UD cheerleaders had a simple cheer that went like this:
“It’s hot...it can’t be stopped…it’s Flyer Fever.”
A lot of people lately have been trying to figure out why is it that we are so devoted to this team? Is it really a disease that “can’t be stopped?”
I addressed this very subject over 8 years ago, in one of my early “FTS” efforts for the old FlyerHoops.com website entitled “Why We Care”:
“As we ride the rollercoaster with the Boys in Red and Blue through the ups and downs of another season, that’s a question I find myself asking, not only of myself, but of everyone who posts on this board: why do we care so much?
After a game, Mrs. Swampy usually inquires “So, how did your classmates do?” Her way of busting my chops for following intently the exploits of a group of young men who are (at the time) only slightly older than our eldest daughter.
What is it that sends me to the PC to listen to Larry and Bucky over the net?
Why do I scour the internet for any HS phenom who lists ‘Dayton’ as one of many schools he includes in his laundry list of college options?
What possesses me to write a semi-regular column on my dime about a team I get to see in person maybe once a year, if I’m lucky?
Like a lot of the younger posters, I used to live and die with the Flyers and took each loss personally.
I have moved beyond that. Age and kids will do that to you.
I now realize the outcome of the game does not depend on whether I am listening or not. As Mrs. Swampy likes to say “They’re gonna have to find a way to win without you, Hon.”
What I believe keeps me interested in the Flyers is the connection I’ve established over the years with the team. As much as Mrs. Swampy likes to razz me about following the boys, she used to be a pretty rabid fan herself when we lived in Dayton and saw them beat Notre Dame at the Arena and stayed up late to see the Flyers eventually lose to UCLA in three overtimes.
Donald Smith’s sweet lefty fall away jumper…Jimmy Paxson’s back-door cuts…waiting all night for tickets to games at the Fieldhouse…seeing Chris Daniels play one of his last games in Pittsburgh.
Stuff like that accumulates over the years in your mind’s attic and it never gets put on the table at the garage sale—it stays locked up there.
Time can’t disconnect it; the O’Brien years couldn’t sever it.
The connection I have, that we all have, with the Flyers is there and will remain there until I don the dirt suit.”
-- I always like to glance over and see what the current high for most users on the UD Pride MB is –- it’s listed on the left hand column, under the navigation bar. As of this writing the record tally stands at:
Most users ever online was 479, 01-23-2009 at 02:48 AM.
Bear in mind that the time indicated is 5 hours ahead of EST, so in reality it was 9:48PM on Thursday the 22nd...so it was collective sigh of relief right after the G-Dub game that warranted that kind of traffic.
C’mon, we can break 500 sometime this season, can’t we?
-- As I was cruising up Lakeshore Drive in Chicago after work last week, I drove past Foster Beach Park where I played some pickup ball over the summer. In case you missed it, here’s a link:
http://udpride.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5811
Anyway, out there under the lights were a couple of kids who had shoveled off half of the slab and they were shootin’ hoops in the relatively balmy mid-30 degree temps. When is the last time you saw that? We used to do that all the time when I was a kid at the playground up the street back in Leominster, MA.
-- Chris Cage will get a kick out of this one: my new car has Sirius/XM satellite radio and one of the rock channels is called “Deep Tracks.” On my way home to Michigan from Chicago I heard a really deep one -– “Home Again” by Batdorf and Rodney.
Somewhere, Tom Weiser, owner of the long-departed Forest Books and Records on Wayne Avenue is smiling. Anyone who attended UD in the early ‘70s and/or listened to WVUD back then knows what I am talking about. Weiser hyped the living crap out of B&R on FM 100 to the point that they got regional and national airplay.
-- Amazingly enuf, John and Mark reunited in 2007 to play together again! Here are links to a couple of websites devoted to Batdorf and Rodney:
http://johnbatdorfmusic.com/index.html#jbwords
http://batdorfandrodney.tripod.com/indexframe.html
-- As I was tooling along I-94 in northern Indiana listening to an extended Batdorf & Rodney guitar solo, I looked off to the right and saw two horses in a big farm corral running in the snow. It could have been Montana or Colorado or wherever, but they were right there with me in Hoosierland. Kinda cool.
-- How would you like to be making a hoops comeback at the age of 16, after having first dunked at age 8 and getting written up in Sports Illustrated at 14? Allow me to introduce you to Demetrius Walker:
http://hsi.pe.com/pages/centerpiece/stories/walker.html
-- The definition of divided loyalties: watching George Mason play VCU on TV and hoping GM wins to help UD’s RPI, while at the same time pulling for Anthony Grant’s kids to do well.
That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com