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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 3077745, member: 289"] "Digger Phelps used his one 26-3 year at Fordham to get the Notre Dame job. But he left behind most of the players who had created that record for new coach Hal Wissel. It was big test for SU, which still was trying to capture national attention. This was my freshman year at SU and I had gotten an early indication of the struggle our community had for recognition. I lived on the seventh floor of Booth Hall. One Saturday morning, I was in the lobby of our floor, looking out over the seeming vast expanse of Syracuse NY. A friend from New York City wandered by and asked me how I was going to spend my day. I told him I might go down city. He asked what flight I was taking. In those days, we weren’t “the ‘Cuse”. We were Syracuse, New York, the state being necessary to designate us from the Syracuses in Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Utah, and, I suppose, Sicily. Beating Fordham would put a small dent in that perception and I walked the mile down to Manley to see if we could do it. SU led almost the entire game, just had they had in that first game I’d seen five years before against St. John’s. And, just as happened in that game, the big bad team from New York City pulled ahead in the final minute. The Rams had no Sonny Dove but it sure looked like they were going to win. In the grand tradition, SU fans got up in droves to leave. I admit I did too, but I lingered at the door, starring back at the court, which in those days was constructed right on top of the dirt floor the football team used for indoor practice sessions. The vibrations of the players and heat generated by the fans sent fine particles of dirt and dust flowing up to the rafters. The lights illuminated this and created something approximating a dream sequence. SU had somehow gotten back within a single point but there were only a couple of seconds left and a Fordham player was at the line for a one-and-one. He missed. Somebody ripped the ball down for SU and rifled it to midcourt, where a pass was made to a driving Chuck Wichman- the “scrub” who had destroyed Niagara the year before. Wichman made a running lay-up at the buzzer and what was left of the crowd stormed the court. I ran out into the parking lot shouting “WE WON!!! WE WON!!!!”. People looked at me as if I were crazy. They were right but so was I. Chuck Wichman never scored more than 6 points in a game in his career but no one who remembers that era will ever forget him." [/QUOTE]

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