couple of stories

[dasher]

Years ago, when every Syracuse game wasn't on tv, I would have to listen to the games
on my car radio. The radio in my home couldn't pick up the Syracuse stations. Anyway,
middle of winter and I am outside listening to the game. I am standing outside my car pacing
and a police car pulls up and asks me what I am doing. I say listening to a game. Where he asks.
On the car radio. I answer. He asks why. I explain. He says where do you live? I say right there.
Suddenly another cop car comes screaming down the street. I ask,. did you guys call for back up?
The next cop car pulls up and asks what's up? The cop explains. They are satisfied but meanwhile
the Orange go on a spurt. They are ready to go but I ask, hey, could you guys stay until their run is
done. They both tear out.
Next, not so humorous but telling. I am selling my business and I have talked to this guy from the mid west
about helping with the sale. Turns out, I have a buyer ( I think) so I don't need him. But he writes me
on Friday asking how it is going and then says hey great for the Orange getting Freeman. People across
the country noticed this one.

 

[stlorange]

I can relate to the first story. I graduated in 1975 and then went to Chicago to get my mba and then moved to St. Louis in 1981 for law school and never left. When living in Chicago and St. Louis I could only pick up cuse games on radio at night on a station out of rochester (maybe 1180 am). Could never get it on the radio at home so I used to drive around and park wherever the station came in the best. My wife and kids thought I was nuts. Another story. My parents lived in Virginia and when games were televised in the east and not the midwest, I'd call my mother and have her put the receiver next to the tv for 2 hours. Man the things we do as cuse superfans.

 

[OrangeTarheel]

My first cuse games were on the radio. Fell in love in the late 80s and I don’t recall watching a game on tv or in person until the 90s.

 

[Dick_in_MI]

After listening to SU games on WSYR for 40 years, we moved to Michigan in 1991. I and my wife immediately had Orange-withdrawal until I learned that I could pick up WHAM out of Rochester...but only on the car radio at night, and only when it was not in the garage, and even then, not always.

So, on winter nights I would sit in the driveway with the car running, listening to Doug Logan if I recall. Sometimes it would fade in and out at an inopportune time, and sometimes a Spanish station would walk on it entirely. My neighbors came to know what I was doing. "Hey, it's -20 degrees and Dick is sitting in his car with the engine running. Must be Syracuse is playing tonight."

When I was able to pick up streaming broadcasts of SU games on my computer not too many years ago, I equaled the scientific breakthrough with Einstein's Law of Relativity. Or in the way it helped me anyway. When the ACC network finally came to my cable system so I could watch most games with my own two eyes, I equaled that breakthrough to the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA by Watson and Crick.

Of course, I sometimes go overboard with my metaphors...

 

[cliftonparksufan]

Yup. For some reason The Great Alaskan Shootout sticks out in my head as one of a few that I listened to sitting in my car, although I might be wrong.

I do remember listening to a Yankees/Mariners playoff game late night from Seattle in 1995. I was staying in a hotel in Cincy and the game wasn't on TV, so I listened in my car. Quite possibly the same day or week that the OJ decision came down. Quite bizarre but it showed the nation was divided.

And as a teenager, I used to hangout in my bedroom listening to AM radio on my stereo with headphones on, seeing what stations would come in, especially on a clear evening. One of the clearest was KMOX from St. Louis and I became a big Blues fan, listening to all their games with Dan Kelly and Noel Picard. The games would run from 9 pm to 11:30. Pretty late for a school kid, but thanks to head phones, my parents never knew. Or didn't care. LOL!!!

 

[CardiacCuse]

I can relate to the first story. I graduated in 1975 and then went to Chicago to get my mba and then moved to St. Louis in 1981 for law school and never left. When living in Chicago and St. Louis I could only pick up cuse games on radio at night on a station out of rochester (maybe 1180 am). Could never get it on the radio at home so I used to drive around and park wherever the station came in the best. My wife and kids thought I was nuts. Another story. My parents lived in Virginia and when games were televised in the east and not the midwest, I'd call my mother and have her put the receiver next to the tv for 2 hours. Man the things we do as cuse superfans.

haha - my father (from St Louis) went to SU for his PhD and raised me in Virginia...seems we have the (rare?) STL-SU-VA connection!

Used to watch the games in the 90s on "Big Monday"...we'd get pizzas from Pizza Hut and it would feel like a special occasion ...(although the Cuse were televised a lot back then)...which, looking back, was a big reason the team was so relevant and popular amongs fans and recruits - precious exposure...

so it is a bit of a double-edged sword now that there's basically access to anything you want - being able to watch or see something isnt as "special" in this era and the Cuse definitely lost its edge there with being one of the premier programs that could give a player a real spotlight.

 

[kcsu]

Great memories listening to Joel M vividly describe the action. Roys runts were the best.
Bob Dooooooms
Which way whichman
Up the invisible ladder...
One of the best times of my life.

 

[ar inj]

Back in the day when NCAA tournament regional games were only broadcast regionally I lived in Connecticut and of course, I was only going to be able to watch the UConn game. There was really no other option and my wife understood. I took the day off from work and took my young son out of school. We started driving towards Syracuse but I was not sure where the broadcast line was or what station any hotel would get. Drove all the way to Syracuse, my son got to swim in the hotel pool and the Orange won while I watched on the hotel TV.

 

[AlaskaSU]

In the mid 70's, after Cuse graduate school, I moved to Southeast AK. (undergrad at Bingo, which started as a Cuse honor college) Communication was primitive in AK back then. It was flown in on tape from Seattle and played the next day. Later on I resorted to going to the local public radio station to read the ticker tape during a game, to get the score from time to time.

 

[kcsu]

When this forum first started i used to have someone from here tape and mail me Tapes of the games. I dont remember who but i did it for a few years when i lived in Omaha.

 

[kcsu]

When this forum first started i used to have someone from here tape and mail me Tapes of the games. I dont remember who but i did it for a few years when i lived in Omaha.

When this forum first started i used to have someone from here tape and mail me Tapes of the games. I dont remember who but i did it for a few years when i lived in Omaha.

Tommy Braintree Stundis.. did i get that one right?

 

[50YRsofCuse]

I remember listening to Joel Mariness and Syracuse basketball games on a transistor radio during the winter nights in the mid 1960s. I was about 14 when I got hooked on Syracuse basketball. I remember sitting next to the winter frosted window in my bedroom with the transistor radio real closed to the window so the reception would come in a little better than any where else in the room. I can’t explain the enjoyment I felt when Syracuse teams led by Bill Smith, Ernie Austin, Bob McDaniel and later Greg the kid Kohls, Dennis Duval, Rudy Hackett and others to a victory. That was the start of my obsession/addiction and it is still going strong 56 years later.

 

[Bill Orange]

Tommy Braintree Stundis.. did i get that one right?

“The Braintree Butcher!”

 

[bevosu]

I remember when my brother, an avid SU basketball fan, reluctantly had to move to North Carolina. He would stream the games on WAER and then WAER stopped streaming them for a couple of years. I think it was a Daryl Gross decision. My bro was not happy.

 

[Longtimesu]

I remember listening to Joel Mariness and Syracuse basketball games on a transistor radio during the winter nights in the mid 1960s. I was about 14 when I got hooked on Syracuse basketball. I remember sitting next to the winter frosted window in my bedroom with the transistor radio real closed to the window so the reception would come in a little better than any where else in the room. I can’t explain the enjoyment I felt when Syracuse teams led by Bill Smith, Ernie Austin, Bob McDaniel and later Greg the kid Kohls, Dennis Duval, Rudy Hackett and others to a victory. That was the start of my obsession/addiction and it is still going strong 56 years later.

Awesome, me too, to all of the above. Then you must remember Popeye also.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I began listening in the Roy's Runts years, the year after Bill Smith graduated. I won tickets to games at Manley on a morning radio station sports trivia game. I was a paperboy, so not many people were up calling in to the radio station at 6 AM; if they were up, they were getting ready for work.

Anyway, I won tickets to see the Orange and the Blazers hockey team so many times that they put in a rule that a person could only win once per month. SU was almost never on TV, so those early free tickets to Manley lit the fuse for me. I would listen to Joel Mareiness under the covers on school nights with a little transistor radio, until mom would come in and yell to turn it off for the night.

Once the Big East got on ESPN, I've always felt connected to the program.

 

[cto]

The 1987 West Virginia football game (the dramatic one that clinched our undefeated regular season that year) was not on tv in NYC, and not even on NYC radio. I found it on some 50-watt Long Island radio station, but it came through only when the radio was held out the apartment window (on the 30th floor). I spent the entire game with my arm out the window listening to the game.

 

[IthacaMatt]

My most frustrating time was the 1992 NCAA tournament game against UMass. I was on the train from Syracuse back to NYC somewhere around Utica trying to listen on a portable radio held near the window. I only heard about a few seconds at a time, and then it would cut out, and then a few more seconds. Just enough to have a sense how close the game was, but not enough of a consistent signal that you could really follow it too closely. Of course we wound up losing in overtime.

 

[OrangeTarheel]

I remember when my brother, an avid SU basketball fan, reluctantly had to move to North Carolina. He would stream the games on WAER and then WAER stopped streaming them for a couple of years. I think it was a Daryl Gross decision. My bro was not happy.

That was a lifeline for me as well for a bit. This thread is making me feel old again but radio was just a fantastic medium and what an art to being a play by play guy.

 

[50YRsofCuse]

When I lived in Maryland in the 80s and 90s, Syracuse was still in the Big East and would play Georgetown at the Capital Center. Now the Capital Center is not the Carrier Dome but it was always packed for this game. There was always a good representation of Cuse fans and the games were like bloody, bone crushing battles.

Somehow for several years I was able to get tickets for my wife and I for these games. Now, my wife was from Maryland and a laissez faire basketball fan but she would go with me decked out in Syracuse Orange attire and root for the Cuse. Unfortunately, too many times, the home court advantage would be too much to overcome and Georgetown would come out the winner squeaking out a 1 to 2 point victory.

While the games were intense and exciting, they were frustrating to me. Finally, my wife said to me that if these games were that upsetting to me then we should not go and by the way, she rather be shopping (her element of enjoyment).

Well, our family was growing and we need to cut expenses and divert them to handle more family needs, so that luxuries like Syracuse-Georgetown games had to be put aside. I understood that but we went one last time in 1990, it was a great game where Syracuse blew out Georgetown by close to 20 points. Billy Owens, Stevie Thompson and Derrick Coleman excelled in the game.

All my frustrations from previous close games were gone, such enjoyment I could not describe. We waited before leaving until the last few 100 people were left. I knew it would be the last game we would attend for a long time as focus would be more on our four children needs, events and the like.

I have no regrets. Family comes first even though that Syracuse basketball games with Georgetown were a close second. Just glad that the last game was so memorable.

 

[stlorange]

Ha, Dick in Mi, I remember that Spanish station as well! I used to fiddle with that radio dial like a neurosurgeon to bring in WHAM as clear as possible!

One more story, when syracuse beat the lobos in New Mexico I remember it was a Saturday night and I wasn't going to bed until I knew the score. I went out at 2:00 am to get the Chicago paper but they only had the early editions. I finally called WSYR around 4 am and asked whoever answered the phone who won and they said cuse and I went to bed happy!

 

[Col. Bleep]

The 1987 West Virginia football game (the dramatic one that clinched our undefeated regular season that year) was not on tv in NYC, and not even on NYC radio. I found it on some 50-watt Long Island radio station, but it came through only when the radio was held out the apartment window (on the 30th floor). I spent the entire game with my arm out the window listening to the game.

Radio is the greatest...distant sound magically travelling through the air and coming into some box we have or hold.
Back before the web it often was the ONLY way to get real time info about a game or event.

Love being able to watch or listen easily now...but miss the old magic.

 

[Stevenson]

Growing up in the Mohawk Valley in the 70s I’d try find baseball games on the AM dial when I was bored. If the conditions were right, I’d get Pirates games on KDKA, Indians games, Phillies games and cardinals games on KMOX. I could sometimes get patriots games if they played in the late window as well. Good times.

 

[stlorange]

In the 60s I'd lie in bed with my little transistor radio in Virginia and was able to pick up WJR in Detroit and because a huge tiger fan--even though I'd never been within 700 miles of Detroit. I could also pick up WBZ in Boston but for some reason never became a Boston fan.

 

[OHIORANGES]

In 1981 I was on a business trip to Australia when SU was scheduled to play Tulsa in the finals. This was b4 cell phones.
I knew the game was on but couldn’t get any results in Sydney, so I called my parents in Upstate NY. It was almost over, so my Mom put her phone next to the tv and turned up the volume.
Long distance intercontinental calls were very expensive back then and of coarse the game went to overtime. I stayed on to bitter end and had one hell of an expensive phone call on my hotel bill