When did you become an SU basketball fan.

[SWC75]

When did you become an SU basketball fan?

Me: Started to get interested in the 1965-66 season when we were scoring 100 points a game but fell in love with the next year's team that was rebuilding but started out 19-2.

What was the first game you listened to the radio or watched on TV?

12/29/66: We lost to #2 Louisville in the Quaker City Classic 71-75. I listened on the radio and cried myself to sleep at age 13. The first Tv game was a 102-81 win over LaSalle at Manley.

What was the first game you attended?

2/25/67: The Sonny Dove game. We were 19-2 and St. John's 18-3. Who was the best team in the East. It looked like us most of the way but a couple of Sonny's dunks and we lost 64-71.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

First game I watched on TV was the 1975 Eastern Regional Semis vs UNC.

Listened to a bunch on the radio after that.

First game attended had to be in the late 70's.

 

[Cuse1055]

The day I was born, which happened to be during Pearl’s freshman season. Have had the same season ticket seats with my dad my entire life and will never give them up. My dad actually jokes that I was going to games before I was even born since my mom would go when she was pregnant with me. I was literally born to bleed orange.

 

[stuckinbig11]

1967-1968 season when I was a freshman. The freshman team with Bill Smith, Bob McDaniel, Tom Green, and Bill Finney was great--the varsity team not so much. I missed only one home game from then until I moved away in 1978.

 

[SouthernCuse]

Where I lived in the 80s the tourney was kind of a niche thing to be into. It gradually became huge, but one had to go do things like find a bar that would show some of the games in 1989. I remember buying the USA tourney supplement and reading about all the teams. So I could follow the fast arriving results on Thursday and Friday of the first week.

In the winter of 1990, maybe 1991 I had moved and was studying every night in wintry Rochester and had the radio on because I liked to block something out when I was studying, helped me focus better. (more likely you are not like that, but some are). Every once in a while a name like Billy Owens would wander through the radio, hmm? That guy sounds pretty good.

It grew from there. I remember watching Autry's 30 point tourney game at some crowded bar in DC. By the 1995 I was a remote fan but hanging on, and the 96 FF run clinched it, fanatical after that. Thanks for asking.

 

[Brooky03]

Born into it, but my first recollection of cheering for Cuse and specific players was around ‘99, so when I was 8-ish. I remember liking Blackwell a lot and Shumpert was my favorite player for a long time.

 

[Ozone!]

Early Manley days

 

[dessu]

I grew up as a Syracuse Nats fan. You could buy a general admission ticket for the stage for 50 cents and then go find a good seat.
I believe the Nats left town in the summer of 1963, and that is the year I transferred into SU as a junior. That is also the year Bing and Boeheim became eligible for the varsity. I think I saw all of the home games In my two years there and even went on a road trip to Cornell to see them play. Dave Bing was amazing and I still remember the smell of the dirt floor.

 

[Madbiker]

1970-71 with the Roy's Runts team. That team had Mike Lee at 6'3 and Mark Wadach at 6'2 as the starting forwards with 6'11 scoring center Bill Smith at center. But my favorite was Kid Kohls at SG who could go off for 35 several games with his amazing long range shooting -- and that was before the 3 point shot. The Manley Zoo was rocking. That team went to the NIT -- when the NIT was a meaningful tourney.

 

[Cuse House]

First game was 2002-2003 at the Dome against Georgetown. Mike Sweetney was a monster for them. I was 10 at that time and got hooked. Not sure how I got so lucky to watch a national championship team for my first season. I would always fake being sick during the Big East Tournament so I could stay home and watch. My parents knew what I was doing, but I generally didn’t miss school otherwise. I happened to be “sick” for the GMac runner three to beat Cincy. Great memories.

 

[rrlbees]

1962

 

[81South]

Born into it as well….late 70s when most games were only on the radio. We were always listening to games. Didn’t attend my first game until Jan 1990…home game vs UConn…I think we were both ranked in the Top10.

 

[General20]

I remember everybody being so excited about Pearl Washington, but I was a little young. I didn't really develop my own personal understanding and passion until the '87 season. Started at a lucky time and have had an amazing run.

 

[Eric15]

89-90 Georgetown game when JT got ejected. I had it on VHS and would rewatch it like every day when I was 8. At one point I had the entire game choreographed in my head.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

I started ~84 when I decided to enroll for 1985. Before then, I didn’t care much for college basketball, aside from watching championship games with Carolina, Georgetown, Houston, Villanova… that ‘recent’ era.

I was excited to get to Syracuse and experience The Dome, and I always feel lucky to have been there for a season of Pearl. Then, the next year, we beat Carolina, M Street was madness, and we continued to the championship. It’s ‘unfair’ to expect that it was always going to be like that, but on the other hand, why can’t it be again?

 

[50YRsofCuse]

1966-1967 season when I was 12-13, I listened on my transistor radio on cold winter nights to Syracuse games with Big Bill Smith, Earnie Austin, Rick Harmon, Vaughan Harper and the next year Greg the Kid Kohls came in. Interesting games with East Coast rivalr with fighting with refs, individual players scoring 40s and individual opponent players also scoring in the 40s In the same game.(??)..

 

[Buddah69]

In 89 was brought up Kentucky fan but they got put on probation and my best friend liked Georgetown and Syracuse was their rival so I became orange fan to fuss with him and have bleed orange ever since I was 11 year old

 

[NorSyr66]

Where we grew up near Binghamton we could only get the Binghamton and Syracuse channels on our TV in the 1950s. Started following Syracuse in the 1950s when Jon Cincebox from Binghamton played for Syracuse. I always thought he was a big man at 6 ft 7 in - he was in high school. Of course there was the football player named Jim Brown playing basketball between football and lacrosse. When Ernie Davis from Elmira Free Academy got his scholarship to Syracuse, sort of sealed the deal watching Syracuse.

I got regularly hooked on basketball about 1968-69 when Bill Smith from Rochester played for Syracuse. I remember watching the Syracuse Nationals back in the 1950s, along with the Baltimore Bullets, Boston Celtics, St Louis Hawks and the Minneapolis Lakers. It was in the 1968-69 season I started following Syracuse on the radio and what few tv games were available in the Rochester market.

Of course living in Rochester after 1960, I watched Jim Boeheim play high school for Lyons against East Rochester in Section V Class A championship game in 1962. Both teams were unbeaten going into the game that East Rochester won in double OT.

 

[kirbivore]

A fan since my first Dome game which was also my 8th birthday. 1/28/85 vs Georgetown.

 

[sususpicious]

March 13, 1977.

I was a high-school senior and had just been accepted to SU, and I have to admit that as a kid who had moved to upstate NY from Indiana, I knew next to nothing about Syracuse... other than that they had a good journalism school.

I remember turning on the TV that night - channel 6 out of Schenectady - just in time to see SU playing Tennessee, with Bernie and Ernie in the tournament. As I was watching the overtime, I wondered who this Louie and Bouie combo were? Was SU really gonna beat Bernie and Ernie!!?? What the heck!!

At that moment, I stopped rooting for the Hoosiers and jumped onboard the Jimmy Boeheim wagon...

 

[shermstheman]

Moved to BVille from out of state to take my first job in 1981. Had liked the wooden teams so still rooted for UCLA (was at the Walton 21 for 22 game) but the Cuse fans loyalty and excitement for what JB was building won me over. Never switched allegiance for any other sport or team before or since. The fans were so great and the team was dynamic. Even though I moved away after only one year my heart has bled Orange ever since.

 

[CapitalO]

I am 62 years old I went to Manley field house a few times with my parents when Roy Danforth was the head coach and I also was at the last game at Manley when Georgetown beat us and man I became a hoops junkie I bought season tickets when the dome opened and had them until up until 2017 I still get to a couple games a year but watch most of them on tv. Back in the day those big east games were unreal.

 

[SDjohn]

Born in 1974 into a Syracuse sports family so pretty much born into it. When I really got into it I was 9-10. Remember watching Leo and Co. but really started getting really into sports the year “The Pearl” hit the half court shot

Lucky enough I remember going to a banquet with my family after the 84 football season. Got to meet Coach Mac, Don McPherson and Mike Siano.

1987, I was 13 and had what I still say was the worst sports loss and tie I’ve ever suffered both in New Orleans. Basketball stung a bit more, the football team still would not have won the National Title. But we were in New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl. Unfortunately we ended up watching the game on TV, tickets were a bit hard to get but I had family that lived in Slidell so we were there, just not actually there.

 

[CapitalO]

Born into it as well….late 70s when most games were only on the radio. We were always listening to games. Didn’t attend my first game until Jan 1990…home game vs UConn…I think we were both ranked in the Top10.

I want to award you with the best avatar on this forum.

 

[cto]

I became a fan as an SU student in the very early 1960s when SU was literally the worst college basketball team in America. During that period we set the then-record for consecutive losses. Fortunately, that dubious record has since been broken.