The Final Coundown Saga Continues...

First of all, the game: unbelievable. The only thing I can say, is I am so happy that the seniors- both players and more importantly my fellow fans, had one of the greatest games ever to go out on. The feeling of rushing the court was indescribable and I'm only happy I had 4 or 5,000 others to be there and experience it with me.

Now- on to this video: The Final Countdown. As you may know, it was played on the big screen of the carrier dome before tip-off. It was also featured on News Channel 5 in Syracuse as a quick bumper shot. Today I got a call from one of the sports guys at CBS 5, and if everything goes well, the band and I will be featured on a special about the orange that will air prior to playing in the NCAA tournament (if everything goes well). It's a testiment to the internet age that we live in- we just did it to have some fun and it caught on and spread like wildfire. We appreciate all the hype! Thanks for everything, keep reading.

For the moment, indescribable

Yesterday was one of the most incredible experiences I've had at SU. I'm too busy with catching up on missed school work to write about it at the moment, but a post is coming soon.

-Menotti

The game and the seniors

I haven't posted, but my name is Jameson, and I'm in the group of freshman in the front row. I got on the list on Thursday. The long wait for the game was 100000% worth it. The atmosphere in the student section couldn't have been any better. The cheering was better than the UCONN game just last week. With two minutes the crowd behind us rushed forward to get ready to storm the court. Finally after our favorite walk-ons got to play the last minute, we stormed the court.

I would like to thank the seniors of Otto's Army, Harry, Bobby, Menotti, Dave, Sean, Dennis, and Jon for making the last four months of my life probably the most memorable. I wish them the best of luck down the road. Without them, I probably wouldn't bleed orange when pricked with a needle.

GOOOOO 'Cuse.

-Jameson

Pep Rally and Pre-Georgetown Huge Success

Wow. Tonight's pep rally at the Women's building was intense. I felt like a kid at a candy shop, as I played just about every inflatable and carnival-style game there was to play. I had the esteemed privelage of jousting with Otto the Orange atop the inflatable joust-arena. While he was crafty enough to knock me down once (damn orange) I came out on top 2-1. The same can't be said about the obstacle course... I got my ass handed to me in that and I think we all have the rug burns on our elbows (battle scars) to prove it.

As you know, or maybe not, I've been unable to camp out for this, the final game of the season. But I am here to tell you that the orange pride is alive and well on the hill. Most people I've talked to are excited about getting to the game, many getting there early I might add, and even the dumbest of sports fans grasp the importance of this Big Monday game against Georgetown in the Dome. In the mean time, time to go to sleep- it's going to be a long day, and hopefully great day tomorrow. Look for the front row crew on the tube! Until next time...

Some thanks, some news, and a rant

This is a long one. Stay with me, it's all really good stuff!

The Thanks
First of all, I'd like to echo was Dave said in the previous post. That was one of the coolest things ever done for us down here. I know that in a few years, I'll be having pizza and wings delivered to our successors. Class of '92, whoever you are, you made our day. The way it happened was pretty funny, too. I was about to take a little evening siesta when we hear some honking from the top of the steps. Then, a voice yells down, and here is the abridged conversation to the best of my recollection:

Delivery guy: Someone order food down here?
(I pop my head out)
Me: I don't think so. What is it and who ordered it?
Delivery guy: It says here for Dave Griffiths
Me: Really? He's not even here right now, let me call him.
(I gave a call to Dave, but he was working at the station and couldn't answer his phone)
Delivery guy: It also says "Love, class of '92" and it's paid for.
Me: OK I'LL SIGN FOR IT!
(Delivery guy proceeds to unload 5 pizzas and what looks like about 6 dozen wings from the truck)

And there was much rejoicing. My best guess, and tell me if I'm
right, is that you put Dave's name on it because my name was the only other full name on the blog, but it's pretty difficult to say.

This made our day. Thanks Class of '92

Anyway, thanks again whoever sent us down that delectable feast. We'll surely be doing to same for the next generation of Orange fans.

The News
Yesterday was a really good day. Aside from the food delivered by the Class of '92, we had another awesome event: a visit from Otto!

I was just getting back from the gym and about to go into my tent when Otto's face creeped around the corner (and scared the bejeesus out of me). After I was done screaming in terror, I realized who it was and yelled for everyone to come out of their tents.

Otto and some of his crew entertained us and also gave us some hot chocolate. We took some pics, Otto did the patented roll into the Green Tent a few times, and they were off. Totally sweet, thanks Otto!

Dave and Otto enjoying some hot chocolate.

The Rant
There's an article on ESPN.com about some Duke students camping out for the Duke v. UNC women's game happening today. Now, let me make this clear: I understand that this article is primarily about the equal ground and respect that women's sports are getting at Universities, and I agree that it is a great thing and will not take anything away from women's sports.

What irks me about this story and others like it is the attention given to the "harsh conditions" the Cameron Crazies endure, and all attempts I've made to get us some publicity goes south (pun intended).

You've seen them before, articles talking about students fighting through the weather, true supporters of their team. Well, that same weather is the reason why the Krzyzewskiville phenomenon is possible.

Are they really enduring harsh conditions, as these reporters say? K-Ville is equipped with power outlets and both wired and wireless internet. The area they camp on is nicely finished grass, and if temperatures drop below freezing, line monitors can call a grace period - a time that everyone gets to return to the warmth but retain their place in line. Not to mention that during the day, 1 person can sit in line to represent a group of 12.

Grace periods!? Otto's Army would've had 4 days of grace this week that we've been out here.

Left: Durham. Right: Syracuse. Note that the height of the columns is relative.

And what we'd give for some grass! We have our tents set up on frigid concrete in the crevices of the Carrier Dome - not out of choice over a grassy area, but out of necessity, as every area with grass also has a few feet of snow on top of it.

I guess there are some advantages to being below ground level near the gates: if you set up your tent just right, you can avoid the whirling winds that often bring the "feels like" temperature to -10F or lower.

My message to the national media: get a clue. What Duke students do, while impressive in their sheer numbers, should be at least looked at with a critical eye or compared with other schools once in a while.

Or, I'd be happy if you returned my attempted contacts and talked about us just once. If 40-some students camping out in North Carolina is newsworthy, 20-some students camping for a week in Syracuse is, too.

Thanks to the Class of 1992

Around 4pm today, a rather large amount of food arrived for those waiting at Gate E of the Carrier Dome from "the class of 1992". The five or six pizzas and three boxes of wings are very much appreciated (and delicious). All of us here wanted to thank the sender(s) very much for their generosity. We were already aware that Domino's delivered to Gate E. Apparently Cosmo's does as well.

(Personally, I was unfortunately unable to be there right when the food arrived as I was anchoring the Live Post Game Show at CitrusTV known as Orange Press Pass, but I did manage to arrive soon after the delivery. Much to my surprise, Ogre (Menotti) hadn't eaten everything already).


We celebrated the occasion by watching the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. CLASSIC!!

THANKS AGAIN, AND GO ORANGE!!

Saturday update

Hey all, just giving an update on Saturday at around 2:30. There are still only 7 groups represented, and I'm not really sure why. One guess I have is that the game is on a Monday, and some groups simply can't make the game until game time, so they aren't camping out, which is understandable.

Last year, on the night before senior day vs. Villanova, there were probably about 100 people to meet and greet Terrence Roberts (above)

I suspect that by Sunday we should see a few more tenters, and hopefully we'll get a good turnout at the Pep Rally (7-9pm in the Women's Building).

In other news, we all went in to watch the lacrosse game last night. We lost, but had a great student turnout.

<-- Some of the lax student section

We had some really good cheers going, and we will probably try to formalize our player introduction heckling. For hoops, students run across the front of our student section with signs that say "Who's he?", "So what?" and so on. Last night, we pretty much ad libbed every one beyond the 5 that we know - "Less than average!" "Inadequate!"

Hopefully, the loss doesn't deter anyone from seeing this great team we have this year. Early season setback, but I'm sure they'd appreciate that kind of turnout every game. Too bad that the Hopkins game is scheduled during our Spring break.

That's all for now. Peace out.

-Menotti

What's with this "List" and line process I keep hearing about?

So, we've been getting lots of questions from local media, staff, alumni, etc. about The List system we've implemented for men's basketball games. Some thought we might be waiting in line just to get tickets, while others thought we were really fighting with each other for seats.

Photo of students outside of Gate E before The List was created, circa 2003-2004

Here's a crash course in how the process we've developed works:

• When a student arrives to wait in line, they are added to The List. Along with their own name, they may add up to 3 fellow students to their group.
• As long as at least 1 representative from a group is present at all times, that group's place in line is valid. This allows people to wait in shifts and maybe even go to a class or two.
• The max group size of 4 was chosen to prevent an unfair ratio of students waiting to the number of students represented by a single person. If we allowed 1 person to wait for 10 people, the shifts would be a bit too easy to organize and it would unfairly put people in seats they didn't necessarily "earn". Essentially, if a person wants to wait a number of hours so they can get 3 of their friends in too, that's OK with us, but anything larger than that seems unfair.
• About an hour before the gates open, which is approximately 3 hours before game time, the groups are lined up in the order of their arrival.
• When the gates open, everyone calmly goes down to the student section, where the people facilitating The List allow the groups to choose their seats in the order they arrived. Important distinction here: No one is waiting in line to be assigned a particular seat. We wait in line for the order of our choice.

So, that's the basic gist of it. Before a bunch of us came together and thought up The List system, it was mayhem to get your seats. The doors would open, people would get stuck pushing through, kids would be tripping and tumbling down the concrete stairs, bodies would fly like superman across as many seats as possible.

We've put something together here that ensures the safety of everyone and gives fans their seats pretty fairly, too.

I'll post the official document (more detailed) tomorrow.

Until then, goodnight.

-Menotti

The numbers grow

We're up to 7 groups now. The 9-oh-5 Crew and Company showed up around 2pm, but they forgot a set of tent poles! Doh! Lisa ran back to her house, but the poles were nowhere to be found.

Their tent, affectionately known as The Tunt, was demolished before it was ever constructed:

But all was not lost. There were some "extra" poles that weren't linked up with string, so they began to MacGyver them together. As they were doing this, they realized that these were, in fact, the set of poles they were missing from before, but the strings holding them together broke the last time they took the tent town.

So, The Tunt is alive and well, and the group of freshmen, some of whom made that sick Final Countdown video, are now represented.

Lisa and Jill really enjoyed their Moca Javas

By the way, go to http://www.suathletics.com on Sunday for the game preview article that will highlight Otto's Army, as well as this blog.

Menott out.

Freshman update from the warmth

First of all, I'm Greg. You might know me as that kick-ass keyboardist from Syracuse University's official air-band. You probably don't know me at all though. I'm a freshman here, from Baltimore, and am crazy enough to usually be at the dome hours (days) before the basketball games. Unfortunatley (sp?) for the first time this season- and thus, my life- I am unable to make it early to the Georgetown game. I have a class that doesn't get out til after gate time, and, I will have to settle for the back.

My buddies in the Frosh tent will, however, be there making me proud. And though I'm sure they will get flack from the green and blue tents, the red tent twenty-tent will reign superior in the end.

While I am enjoying the warmth of central heating systems in the dead of winter, I think I will probably end up spending a night at Gate E with the boys... because, I kind of miss it. Weird. I will defintley be at the moshing prior to tip-off on monday, though, because I need to get elbowed by Menotti one more time for old times sake. Stay warm boys... and girls.

Another Night at Carrier Dome...

Bobby VI writing from the prestigious and superior blue tent on the evening of Wednesday, February 21, 2007.

Not much going on - I won't make you read some stupid stuff about what I am up to, you don't really care - frankly neither do I.

A couple of things: 1) James Graham blames me for the overnight tradition. I disagree. I blame Harry Shafer. The earliest I ever came before he started to beat me to Gate E was 7 AM for a 7 PM football game (Florida State, Homecoming 2004). You'll have to forgive James though, he is a 21st year senior. 2) The experience this week, while it will be fun, is also going to be bittersweet, it being our last game and all. I've made some great friends while camping out down here, friends I'll never forget. I'm really going to miss doing this.

Anyway, I'll write more later. Got other stuff to do for now.

Until later,

Bobby VI

An Ancient Conflict: The Blue vs. Green Tent

Last night, Harry showed up and set up his group's (inferior) green tent.

This conflict has been going on so long, some would call it ageless. Back around 72 AD, when the Colosseum in Rome began construction, some enthusiastic peasants began camping out for the first gladiatorial event, one in which Gerard McNamaximus would face the Uconnian Empire's greatest warriors.

As you may suspect, there were two main "tents" originally made from animal skins. Little to the peasants' knowledge, the wait turned out to be about 8 years, and tensions rose. As each tent added complicated stone technologies to stay warm, battles over those materials escalated into full out wars.

Gerard McNamaximus

So, here we are in AD 2007, and the conflict is far from over. Just last year, someone from Harry's group decided to yell "blue tent sucks" and, well, you'll be sorely missed, Richard.

That's all for now. More of this story to come.

Peace,
Menotti

Dome Update

WHAT'S UP CUSE FANS?!?!?! THIS IS DAVE GRIFFITHS COMING TO YOU LIIIIIIIVE FROM THE CARRIER DOME. GREAT TO BE A CONTRIBUTOR TO THIS BLOG!

A short introduction of myself: I'm a senior at SU from Wilmington, DE (about a half hour south of Philly). I came to the Cuse to major in broadcast journalism, and I'm specializing in sportscasting. I bleed Eagle green and was very disdraught when Andy Reid decided to punt on 4th down with less than 2 minutes left in the playoffs against the Saints. Just ask Bobby, Dennis, Menotti, or Sean. They'll confirm it.

It's Tuesday evening right now, nearly 7pm, and I'm alone at the moment down here. The lacrosse team was practicing inside for a while and now the band is playing. They started playing Road to the Final Four and I really wanted to mosh, but as I said, I'm alone. That doesn't help the moshing situation.

I'm really looking forward to lax season this year. The team has a bunch of experienced upperclassmen meshed with a VERY VERY promising sophomore class. Seriously, have you ever seen Pat Perritt play lacrosse? You should. The kid's a monster.

Anyway, I'll be here till 9pm when someone will be taking over while I get stuff done elsewhere on campus. The list still stands at one group.

GO ORANGE!!!

And so it begins

The waiting begins! Bobby, Dave, Sean, and I showed up at Gate E around 10pm last night and set up camp. We got the tent up in about 10 minutes without a problem, as opposed to the usual hour long debacle that usually ends with us calling Jeff - an alum and tent-construction extraordinaire who now lives in Colorado - for help.

Sean and I slept out and it was actually warmer than last year's nights for the Villanova game. We spent about 2 and a half hours watching SU Physical Plant and another construction company demolish and move snow drifts. Yeah, it sounds boring, but it's not like we could goto sleep with the blaring sirens of their trucks going in reverse.

Anyway, here is the current state of The List (if you're not familiar with our line up processes, a later post will explain this, so don't fear):

Group 1 - Menotti + Dave, Sean, Bobby, Dennis (5)

That's it for now. Check back later for more updates. Also - do you have an idea of an interview you'd like to see up here? Let us know. We're already pursuing some Dome staff, but if there are others who are important to the student fan experience, we'd like to talk to them, too.

Peace,
Menotti

The Final Countdown

If this doesn't get you pumped up for Georgetown, I don't know what will.

Traditions - The Mosh (part 2). A response from James Graham, '04

So in my previous post, I tried to give some info about the nature of the pre-game mosh. I also, admittedly, was a bit shaky on its history. I suspected it might be a little older than my time. I contacted James Graham, an '04 alum, to get his take on it. Here are some of the highlights of his response (I've inserted some info in bold for clarification):

"2002/2003 was the season that the student section general admission (and thus, the line waiting) began.

Before that, it was all assigned seating, so a lot [students] would not get to their front seats until well after the game started.

The moshing did not start, however, in 02-03 (which was also the Champ year). Mostly because we were still developing the art of line waiting, testing the limits of others, or not yet willing to skip classes. As a result, the members of the front row often changed. But as that was going on, myself, the Craig Nasties (i didn't know them personally yet), and others started one-upping each other with getting in line earliest.

Note: we'll talk about the Craig Nasties and their legacy in a later post.

The NEXT year (2003/2004), it so happened to be that Tibs (Jeff Tiberii) and I were both RAs (Resident Advisors) in DellPlain, and all the Craig Nasties lived there as well. We decided to join forces to monopolize the front row, and after a few games the gentleman's agreements as to who's groups sat where were formed. (we tried to avoid overnights, Bobby (Bobby Patrick VI) changed that)

I'm not sure who specifically could be credited with starting the mosh. The easiest answer is that we all love the Road to the Final Four song, and it just got us AMPED. I know Matt Blitz liked to jump around like a Cameron Crazy, and perhaps that rubbed off on us.

On the whole, we always tried to break from the mold of normal fans and be as irreverent as possible. There are hundreds of pics of us just mugging for the camera instead of smiling."

So, there you have it. Since the start of it, the mosh has grown to be almost a rite of initiation for those crazy enough to sacrifice lots of time to be in the front. James actually had a lot of other interesting tidbits in his message to be, some of which I'll get to later.

Traditions - The Mosh

If you've been at any SU basketball games, you've probably seen some of us students jumping and bumping into each other with glee when the band plays the CBS NCAA theme song (Road to the Final Four) prior to the tip-off.

Let me tell you what I know about this tradition:

• I was introduced to it as a Freshman in 2003/2004, so it's been going on for at least 4 years. I suspect it may have been started during the championship run the year before, but that's unconfirmed. I sent a few messages out to recent alums to find out if it started during their tenures.
• The mosh itself occurs in front of the first row of the student section, but it is an activity not exclusive to students sitting in the front. We've had people come down from much higher rows to participate and even had some non-students, too.
• You might find some of the Dome staff clearing the area before the start of Road, particularly Bill G.

I'm sure there are some more interesting tidbits about this, so hopefully one of us will get to them later.

Introductions - Menotti

Hey everyone,
My name is Menotti Minutillo and I'm a senior at Syracuse University. In a little more than a week, Georgetown is coming here for a Big Monday match up against our beloved Orange.

For a game of this magnitude, there is going to be an extensive wait for the best possible seats in the general admission student section. As we've done for 4 years, we will be outside, braving the winter elements for a pretty long time.

In this blog, you'll find daily (or multi-daily) updates from the line forming at the Carrier Dome - (Gate E) by myself or one of the many other superfans. There will be great stories, pictures, and maybe even some movies. We should be getting some guest appearances by some pretty important people along the way, too.

So, when will we be getting in line? Check back to see!

Some of your authors: Dave, Bobby, Menotti (me), and Dennis