I'm not sure I understand the seat saving thing. I guess I am just used to the first-come, first-served situation we had 20 years ago. At that point, the rabidness of a fan was generally pretty strongly correlated to how long they were willing to wait outside in line in freezing temperatures, so the problem solved itself.
I definitely waited outside for several hours while still recovering from mono one season for the Paint the Hall Orange game against Wisconsin. I think it was in 2007, Wisconsin was top 10, and we lost. But I had floor seats!Pretty sure I fell down that hill. Both ways.
Yeah, I think that's the point he's making. That nowadays they are saving seats for friends who are not necessarily diehards, and it should go back to the way it was.
The Krush sitting down during every time out drives me insane.
If I recall correctly, we finished 2nd on Billy Thompson that year as well. Many of these players had good college careers a few college AA’s in this group but not any NBA all stars except for Brad Daugherty. I didn’t know Waymon Tisdale passed away from cancer many years ago until I just looked him up on wiki.
Ah, re-reading it and it makes more sense now. The Krush leadership was pretty cliquey when I was there, and getting appointed as a Krush chair seemed more like a popularity contest than anything else, but no one questioned whether any of them were loud, rabid fans or not. They were.
They should take away their chairs and make them stand the entire game if they get to be that close to the floor. I would gladly raise the charitable amount they require to join and be first in line to stand go crazy for 40 minutes.
I went to graduate school at Texas A&M. They used to make a huge deal there about how "everyone in the student section stands the whole game" (though that was far more true of football than basketball, about which no one cares). I always laughed a bit, because, you know... all big sports schools do that. I am sad to see that, apparently, Krush no longer does.
This is absolutely correct. DePaul also hosted 1st and 2nd round games in either 87 or 88.
Interesting. My Dad was the District Construction Engineer for District 5 which included much of the area around C-U. He always said he would take his newly graduated engineers to the area and ask them to make a drainage diagram for the area.....in which there was not a 3 ft. change in elevation within 50 miles. It was an unsolvable problem. Of course, there is a hill near Philo that makes that untrue. Yet, I doubt there is a 3 ft. change in elevation anywhere on the Illinois campus....so no sympathy from me.
You know, I have been thinking about this. When I was in school, I missed 2 games in 4 years. We had assigned seats. You got those seats with a point system based mostly on community and Illini Pride involvement. I have been to countless games since I graduated. Year by year, it seems Krush/Crush has gotten less......interested, engaged...idk. It seems that DEEP ILL-INI PRIDE isn't the same today with the students......JMHO folks. Not saying there aren't some crazies in the group today, but I felt EVERY member was crazy like that when I was there. So what made me feel like the crazed Illini fan when I donned my Crush shirt. I only had to think of a few and I won't mention them all specifically, for fear of starting chaos. But there used to be traditions at the game. Those traditions got EVERY fan in that beautiful concrete dome, on their feet. People didn't go to concessions during these events. It brought us together. I am sure you can think of those specific events like.........The Blues Brothers.........the grocery run........the true fight song and chant........and some I'll leave unsaid. The unsaid was my true connection to my Pride. Do todays young fans have that same kind of connection to something else? They need something like we had back then. Again, JMO here guys.
You weren't too shabby of a player yourself, Deon!
Tradition has been traded for corporation.
Clearly they also missed the impossibility of going uphill both ways or else they'd have called me out for that, too.
I mean, I know our program was on life support for around a decade, but it still seems like the fans should have spurred back to life after a year or two of success. Maybe it's just a symptom of the broader issue of short attention spans. I wonder if other student sections have experienced similar declines in fanaticism.
I don't know. I definitely see what you're saying. But look at some other schools around the country. They see the opposite affect. Like Auburn for instance, they haven't been good until very, very recently. And so it's a new thing to those kids and they are screaming their heads off and jumping around all game.
Great point honestly. Really hope that Krush leadership is seeing how much they're getting pilloried online because its embarrassing and needs to change!
