A Few Nice Pics From the Season

Hey everyone... these got posted in the Purple Pride Facebook group. They are all taken by the amazing Will Crew, a student at UP who has done most of the official photography for the athletic department over the past two years. He's super talented and deserves all the credit he can get, so if you re-use them somewhere please give him a byline. Anyway, if you happen to be friends with Purple Pride on Facebook you can see the rest, but here are a few choice ones:


Team Huddle - Photo by Will Crew


Kramer throwing it down! - Photo by Will Crew


Jared launching a three... we better get used to seeing this! - Photo by Will Crew


Fans at the Gonzaga game. Ah... I love seeing the sea of purple! - Photo by Will Crew

Nice photos!

I like the sign they made for Heytvelt, too. Not the most creative, but
something the students can work on next season.

My favorite sign was at a Santa Clara game when I was in school. Some guys unrolled a "BUCK THE FRONCOS" banner.

PPT, was "BUCK THE FRONCOS" during Chavez' last year? I remember going to that game with my dad and seeing that banner!

Personally, my favorite was a poster from a Gonzaga game a couple years back, when Derek Raivio was in his first or second year with the Zags. It had Rick Raivio's picture from the UP media guide with purple lettering that said "We Remember" at the bottom.

It could have been. I remember at the end of the last game that year, there was a sign that said, "Hit the Road Rob! Portland needs a real coach!"

I forgot about the Rick Raivio picture. They also started a "Dad-dy's bet-ter!" chant.

My favorite chant was when Blake Stepp came into the Chiles center and got the "You're not Dicau" chant.

I still laugh about the chant that greeted the real Dickau his senior season.

Something about sucking . . .

My personal favorite chant, though it wasn't on a sign, was either the "NBA Socks" chant to Tony Bland of San Diego State (probably MattyWizz's and my shining moment after high school, since both of us agree that we peaked in high school) or the "SAT Score" chant to Jason Keep of San Diego.

Neither of those chants were really that funny, but the best part was the reaction from the players. Tony Bland started cracking up at the free throw line, and Jason Keep got so mad that he turned toward us when the refs weren't looking and gave us the double-barreled flip off. It was awesome. What wasn't so awesome was when he hit two free throws at the end of regulation for USD to win by one, and after the buzzer went off he ran straight toward the student section and looked like he was going to kill us.

I couldnt help but notice at this year's Zags game that Josh Heytvelt missed badly on a couple free throws when the students were chanting various fungus-related topics...

Nope. Just remembered the best chant of all time.

Back in the Phil Matthews days at USF, their warm-ups said "We Play Hard" on the back.

Well, after we beat them badly, we started a "We Play Harder" chant that lasted for a good few minutes and I could tell it pissed off Matthews (though I think Matthews' natural state of mind was pissed off). Absolutely classic.

Oh that was brilliant... But really you put that on the back of your warmups you are asking for that... "Gourde is Ug-ly" will also be one of my faves... that or chanting "You live in Spo-kane" to the trashtalking reporter for the gonzaga student newspaper reporter...

although there was that one time a particular fan, who shall remain nameless, decided to yell "He's faking it!!!" to the crumpled Santa Clara player on the floor...with the crowd dead silent... Priceless, especially when he got kicked out by the referee...

Um... the man who shall not be named (let's call him Mr. Attack), didn't quite say "He's faking it." I think the exact words were "Get up you f****g p***y. You're faking it!" Not the finest moment of the UP students. I was standing near him, and I saw the ref turn, scan the crowd for a second, point at him, and then grab a Public Safety officer to escort him away. Which was obviously deserved.

Also classic... the random "Oddball Shoe" chants that we would bust out every now and then. I wonder where that guy is... I haven't seen him in a while.

Well I know for one, their shop that was on 23rd was turned into a Vespa dealership... but I just checked and the website is still up and running... Oh I was going to go with the full Attack quote, but didn't want to offend the women and children of Pilot Nation... Oh to have the boldness of Stonehouse...

I'm not sure what happened to the Odd ball... All I know is I would rather have him in those seats screaming at the players and fans than the Lebanese kid who has the seats now... (He shall also remain nameless, that horrible Purple Pride killer)

DaTruRochin wrote:All I know is I would rather have him in those seats screaming at the players and fans than the Lebanese kid who has the seats now... (He shall also remain nameless, that horrible Purple Pride killer)

Oh Snap! Them's fighting words right there. But true, sadly. What was started as a community builder to support UP basketball was sadly turned into a money-making venture where the focus was on the parties instead of the games. Terrible, terrible, terrible. All that momentum was killed in one year.

I should have done a Super Senior year for the sole purpose of quality control.... For shame...

Seriously. You should have.

Maybe it would have been unsustainable in the format that it was in (though Public Safety was very willing to work with us, which was awesome), but I was shocked at how quickly it fell apart. All to make one guy some money. Pathetic.

Stonehouse wrote: It was awesome. What wasn't so awesome was when he (Jason Keep) hit two free throws at the end of regulation for USD to win by one, and after the buzzer went off he ran straight toward the student section and looked like he was going to kill us.

Just read the above quote and it got me to remembering
I remember that game... especially because one of my housemates was randomly filming the game with the camera he had just gotten for christmas... and there is a video of a lay up as time expired in the first half by Pooh... the ball clearly bounces off the backboard in the video... and then is blocked by a USD player, a CLEAR goaltend... it was called a clean block... we ended up losing by 1... I DEMAND THE RECORD BOOK BE FIXED!!!

AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had forgotten about that! That was a terrible, terrible call and I remember the entire student section screaming at the refs all the way as they walked out of the building.

Damn it. Thanks for making me mad, DaTruRochin.

I'm pretty sure he still has the footage on his computer... I say we send it into the WCC and protest... (Nevermind the fact we blew a 7 point lead)

Its been haunting my dreams for 5 years... I'm sorry to bring the anguish back...

Gosh. How could I have forgotten about that? That was MISERABLE.

Almost as bad as our time keeper forgetting to start the clock in the Washington game about 10 years ago. We were up by one, two seconds on the clock, UW had to go the full length of the floor.

They do the Laettner play for Todd McColluch, and he catches it, dribbles, takes a shot, misses it, gets his own rebound, and puts in a lay-up. And this supposedly all happened in two seconds. It was truly a travesty.

I felt bad for our clock guy... he goofed up. But there was nothing the refs could do. Ah! Why don't we have any good memories?

Oh wait... Kasey Flicker vs. USF, burying the last-second three pointer from WAY deep for the win!!!!!!

Stonehouse wrote:Oh wait... Kasey Flicker vs. USF, burying the last-second three pointer from WAY deep for the win!!!!!!

I have some video footage of that game somewhere... I will have to dig it up. The amazing thing was that Flicker had hit another circus 3 right before the game winner to tie the game... amazing back-to-back long shots made by Flicker. Man, he was fun to watch.

He used to come to some games... but I havent seem him the past few years. A good guy.

Oh! I didnt mention this, and I cant believe I forgot! At the Pilots' game @ USD in the tourney, I talked with none other than......

..........(drumroll please) .......

Curt Ranta! He lives down there, and came for the game. It was great to talk to him!! He's still about 8 feet tall.

That's really cool. What is Curt up to these days?

CURT RANTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my gosh... that is awesome. Gald to hear he's doing well. I think I posted this story on here a while ago, but he was on Blind Date one time and it was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life.

Oh, and Pilot Nut... if you have a tape of the Kasey Flicker game, you need to find it and get it up on to YouTube. I mean you NEED to!

Well, Curt looks exactly the same, and he seemed good. It reminded me what a good guy he is, and what an entertaining Shipstad wing-mate he was! (2A represent!) Most stories are not fit to be posted here...

Even though he *may* have been seen on one of those TV Reality Dating shows a while back... he is now married. He works in real estate (for those that know him, this is a perfect fit! He can schmooze his way anywhere...) He is also starting up his own business--which sounded like a great plan; I hope it works out for him!

1996 UP vs Gonzaga -tournament final.

In the last minute, With UP ahead by about 4, Gonzaga starts pressing hard. Kweemada King breaks for the basket and Lemont Daniels chucks an in-bound Doug Flutie pass than Kwee dunks.

Tournament MVP - Game over.

It doesn't get sweeter than that.

I saw the cheating Torero goaltend--it was right in front of me! After we lost, I turned to the guy next to me and said, "I want those two points back!"

And I also know the guy who got thrown out when he called the SCU player a p y; he was a bio major like me. He was pretty cool when he wasn't at games.

At yet another SCU game, they gave the students the leftover hot dogs from the concession stand. Some of them ended up on the court. No hot dogs have been given out since