Hell in the Hall – Louisville Sports Blog

“What (Coach Denny Crum) lost at the end – he never lost a step coaching – he lost the eye of the tiger in recruiting.”

U of L  Coach Rick Pitino  (as quoted in C-J in October, 2009)

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Outside of the Cards rocking Freedom Hall big, one last time, in a spectacular send off

not much has gone well for U of L basketball since T-Will, Earl, and gang rocketed to the top of the college basketball world

and then crashed shy of even  a Final Four.

First…the bombshell Karen Sypher “incident” and continuing trial.

Key recruiter Rick, Jr.  departs suddenly for Florida.

Then, Fab Melo (a lock by most accounts) goes to Syracuse.

Followed by Jeremy Tyler foregoing his final  year in high school to go pro overseas,

Michael Chandler de-committing,

and now Marquis Teague (another lock until a month ago) picks UK over us

without ever setting foot on UK’s campus.

And nearby,   Calipari is re-loading Big Blue with 5 star blue chips with seeming ease.

Hmmm….

Is it the style of play?  With Calipari’s dribble-drive offense being the current  craze?

Is it the style of coaching?  Old school, hard-ass Pitino vs.  Let- ‘em- play Cal.

Is it the loss of a key recruiter?  Rick , Jr. was very close in age to guys he was recruiting and obviously could relate well with them.

Is it the NBA- type bling and media fawning?  LeBron James, Drake  and World Wide Wes are tough to recruit against.  Top recruits nowadays are less concerned about winning championships than one-and-done-ing it to the NBA ASAP.  UK only got to the Elite 8 with their star-power freshmen BUT they are  sending 4-5 players to the NBA this year.

Or, is it age?  Pitino is 57, Calapari is 51.  The great coaches seldom achieved great heights again after 55…

Is it something we  as U of L fans even need to be concerned about at all?  After all, NONE of the  four teams in this year’s Final Four had a one-and done player.  NONE.

Pitino has been burned by the pursuing one-and-doners like Telfair and has adjusted his recruiting to focus more attention on players on the next tier down,  that will stay 2-4 years.

Will this type of recruiting focus and different style of play and coaching produce more results–and championships– than the one-and-done style of UK?  For Pitino, is this  the beginning of the inevitable downward trend experienced by all coaches as they age past 55?  Or… is  Rick on target with his style and still will  produce Final 4′s– and a National Championship–during his expected last 5 – 7 years of coaching?

Those are the  key questions in the great local and national college basketball soap opera that will unfold over the next several years as Pitino and Calipari continue their battles….

Two of the better — and more rational — comments on this situation and  recruiting wars…

http://www.cardchronicle.com/2010/4/22/1436272/what-is-rick-pitino-supposed-to-do

http://www.cardchronicle.com/2010/4/22/1437699/gasoline-meet-fire

“I’ve been very fortunate to coach in four Final Fours and two championships. I always just treated it as being very, very lucky to be in those games as a coach. I never really felt pressure. Tonight I felt pressure for the first time as a coach.

“There were so many festivities. All the guys were coming back. The NCAA berth being on the line. The No. 1 team in the country. The closing of Freedom Hall.

“I got up at about 2 (a.m.) and said ‘What if we lose?”

Coach Rick Pitino,  on the pressure of winning the last game at Freedom Hall.

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The last game of all time in Freedom Hall.

Against the #1 ranked team.

After one of the worst losses of the year.

A record crowd of 20,135 fans packing the Hall hours before the game–and in their seats and standing 30 minutes before game time

The frenzy of the pre-game dark, alive with 20,000 fans in full cry, waving red -lighted, blinking towels

All the legends of U of L in witness, including Never Nervous, Griff, and the McCrays

And then…and then …the comeback in the second half, like the Cardiac Cards of old

Fueled by the Cheerleader, Rob Hickerson,  spelling out the loudest Cards cheers EVER

And the hearts and souls and throats of 20,000 human beings,  burning for victory

With Siva igniting the energy and Kuric igniting the Hall, with 3′s and slam jams straight out of  the Doctors of Dunk

We won

My God , we won

And when it was over

When it was finally and so sweetly over

I cried.

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It  would have been so, so wrong.

But now it is so right.

FOREVER.

With an exclamation point, the Cards ended their  54 year run at storied Freedom Hall by stunning #1 Syracuse 78-68.

In those 50+ years, U of L has met seven #1 ranked opponents in the Hall.   They leave the Hall with a winning 4-3 record against that gauntlet. And Coach Pitino leaves  with a 3-1 record against #1′s in the Hall.

What does that say about the great coaching at U of L over the years?

What does it say about the great fans in the Hall?

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Anvillian does the work of God for Cards fans…video masterpiece of the Game…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zevk8jgf9gA&feature=player_embedded

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Rick Bozich of the C-J marveled:

http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/bozich/2010/03/video-kyle-kurics-big-day.html

“Kuric scored all 22 points in the final 14 minutes and 25 seconds of the second half.

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Understand this: Kuric had only scored in double figures three times in 27 games this season. He made four three-point shots after making only 13 in the first 27 games.

His season high had been 13 points against Louisiana Lafayette on Dec. 23. He had only scored 19 total points in Louisville’s first 13 Big East games.”

Kyle’s dunk at 2:49 to finish Syracuse (courtesy of DocCardsFan of Card Chronicle):

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Pat Forde, ESPN:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=4971890

Can a building really have magic?

….In a mind-boggling  span of 13 minutes and 41 seconds, Kuric scored all 22 of his points. In that same span, the top-ranked team in the country scored 22. His ability to single-handedly play the Orange to a standstill allowed the Cardinals to surge from three down and on the bubble to 13 ahead and in the NCAA field.

….After he flushed an alley-oop from Preston Knowles with 2:44 left for a 14-point Louisville lead, the building erupted. It was the loudest I’ve heard it in the Hall in more than two decades of covering games here.

….Afterward, when the former players were invited onto the floor for Senior Day festivities, many of them made their way to Kuric to congratulate him.

Someone asked Kuric if they knew who he was.

“They do now,” he responded.”

That’s about as close as you’ll get to swagger from the kid…

“He’s just so shy,” Pitino said. “I’ve never met a person like him. Even when he yells, it’s a shy yell.”

….With a memorable magic act, Freedom Hall was finished.

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“The seniors have never gone to the NIT.  And now they never will.”

Coach Pitino,  addressing the crowd when the game was over.

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They all came today.  all the legends, all the greats in U of L lore.

Never Nervous, Griff, the McCrays, and of course, Coach Denny Crum, who is the principal reason our two national championships and our national prominence.

The first true great player that established Louisville as a basketball power could not be there.  Charlie Tyra died in 2006 at the age of 71.

But his family was there, and shared their memories with Antoinette Konz of the C-J:

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100306/SPORTS02/3060360/U+of+L+s+final+game+at+Freedom+Hall+%E2%80%9Csomething+I+will+never+forget%E2%80%9D

“Vince and Terry Tyra have a lot of wonderful memories involving Freedom Hall, so it was only fitting for the two brothers to attend the last Cardinals basketball game to ever be played there.

After all, in the first University of Louisville basketball game to be played at Freedom Hall on Dec. 22, 1956, their father – Charlie Tyra – scored 40 points in the 85-75 win over Notre Dame.

“This is definitely the greatest memory I’ll have of this place,” Vince Tyra said shortly after U of L defeated No. 1 Syracuse 78-68 in front of a standing-room only crowd of 20,135. “We came in on a victory and we’re leaving on a victory. This is something I will never forget.”

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(Ed. note:  As the Cards fight for an NCAA spot in the gloaming of the regular season, an epoch ending game looms, with a top 10 Syracuse club as the last opponent for U of L in fabled Freedom Hall.

Ever since the season began–and I wrote down the thoughts below– I have been slightly bummed out,  ticking off  the count-down to what feels like the end of many of the brightest memories of my life.

I know in my heart that there is an end to everything… and that an end often serves as a launching point for an even greater future.

But, for me … it going to really take something truly mind-blowing to eclipse Freedom Hall…)

The basketball schedule for U of L for this season was released the other day.

There it was… in black and white…. Saturday, March 6… the last game to be played in Freedom Hall, and the opponent will be Syracuse.

No fan fare, no mention of anything special.

Just THE END spelled differently.

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The young– ok, almost everyone–sees the Hall as a big, worn out barn.

I …see the glistening

Palace of the South,  as the Hall was known for yrs in the North…

A place so far ahead of its time that it was actually vehemently fought against locally as a white elephant so huge it would never be filled!

A place so unimaginably big, that my 10 yr old mouth hung open in amazement the first time I saw the interior –and the sight of Wes Unseld up close

It was THE  national championship game summit ground almost yearly during the 60′s for basketball gods like Lew Alcindor (Kareem), Elvin Hayes, et al

In the 70′s,  it was one of the key sites for the wildest and perhaps greatest basketball I  ever saw –the ABA and a most amazing young Dr J, and was the site of the championship game for our own beloved KY Colonels in ’75 for our only nat’l pro BBall title

It was also the frenzied race track  of the 70′s and 80′s for Denny’s run of 6 nat’l champs leading to 2 nat’l titles

Frankly, some of my absolute best personal memories and emotions are in that building.

I love Freedom Hall…I hope some things will be done there in the future.

And…I hope it gets some rightful send-off during this season….

(Editor’s note:  What suddenly  compels a mortgage broker –with no cheer leading  background–to invent the C-A-R-D-S cheer– and then try to lead 20,000 screaming fans?

I did this interview in March, 2008.  This year, I note Rob is  already warming up, and  led some massive  CARDS cheers at the Villanova White-Out from his seat near my section 336…)

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“The first time I did the CARDS cheer,

I had to spell the it out real slowly.

Nobody knew what the heck I was doing.”

Rob Hickerson, business owner, stadium cheerleader, and Card fan since 1969.

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The Cheerleader is every bit the fast talking dynamo you’d expect from a person who leads 20,000 people by leaping to his feet and stomping , coat-waving, pointing–anything–to get the crowd’s attention, build it to a crescendo and, finally burst it by spelling out CARDS with his body to thunderous chants.

Often he “works” with Sedat, the Handstand Guy, who serves as a killer warm-up act for Rob’s CARDS cheer. And Rob’s nine year old son, Dominic, does the stomp and cheer right next to Dad.

This man knows how to lead a cheer. No, that’s too mild a word. The cheerleaders on the floor lead a cheer. Rob…he conducts the crowd, feels it along, helps it build, and at just the right time, goes for the killer cheer.

This 56 year old guy kinda puts the cheerleaders on the floor to shame, in this regard.

He is a maestro at this, as perhaps he should be since he has been doing this for…28 years.

Rob runs his own mortgage brokerage firm, and I interviewed him by phone, and then had the pleasure of meeting him and his son before the Villanova game. His staccato speech is punctuated every few sentences with a short infectious laugh.

Frank: I understand we share a mutual background and a mutual friend, Greg_____.

Rob: Ah, yes, the Big E. (I smile at this mention of the childhood nickname known by Greg’s close friends.) He and I were in the same class at St. X. Then he and I went to U of L in ’69 together too.

Like you Frank, I grew up in Louisville with Rupp’s Runts and was both a U of L and UK fan back then. Really, quite honestly, it was the race thing with UK in the 60′s that made me want to go more and more toward U of L.

When I went to U of L in 1969, then that was when I really went totally with the Cards.

In fact my senior year when I worked at the old European Health Spa, Dana Kirk used to come in. He was the assistant to Denny Crum back then, you know. Anyway, he comped me tickets all year long.

Images of those plaid jackets of his…bright green and yellow…still pop in my mind! (Infectious laugh)

Frank: Our section calls you The Cheerleader. Others call you the Coat Waver. When did you first start doing the CARDS cheer– and why?

Rob: Actually, it was the first championship year, 1980. We were supposed to be good that year. It was the first game of the season. It was a close game with like 6 to 7 minutes left. And the crowd was dead.

I decided to do something. If you remember back then, UK’s fans were known for loudly supporting their team.

I got up on my chair and started yelling and trying to get the crowd going. And they did get going some. And the Cards went on a run from there to win the game.

After the game, my ex-wife and I, and some friends were at the old Kunz’s the Dutchman. And we were all excited and thinking about what I could do to get the crowd into it even more.

At the same time, if you remember, that trunk driver got up on the Baltimore Orioles dug out and spelled out ORIOLES with his body, and they won the World Series.

So, I decided to spell out CARDS.

The next game I tried it. But, Frank, back then I had to make the letters a lot more carefully. The first time I did the CARDS cheer, I had to spell it out real slow. Nobody knew what the heck I was doing. (Infectious laugh.)

Frank: Had you ever been a cheerleader–or done anything like this before?

Rob: No! Never. I guess the closest was like you probably experienced at Trinity. At St. X, I remember being in awe as a freshman of the large packed gym and the loud cheering. And you know how it was at all the football games too. Crazy.

Frank: I noticed that the Handstand Guy, Sedat, sometimes helps with the cheer. When did that start?

Rob: It was early on, in ’81 or ’82. He was one of the first to come help me. If you remember then, you could walk all the way around Freedom Hall. He and I would do that.

We’d just wander around, yell and wave–try to make eye contact, point our finger. Get one person in that section clapping– the others will follow, you know.

You could work up a hell of a sweat! (Infectious laugh.)

After a while, I asked Sedat what he could do that would help get the crowd going. When he showed me the handstand, it blew my mind. I said, “Let’s do it!” Of course, it drives the crowd wild!

Frank: Do you have any special game memories from all these years?

Rob: Well, the championship game in 1980 was the best, the most memorable.

But I’ll tell you another one. Remember that Tennessee game a few years ago, when we came back from like 9 points down and hit all those 3 pointers in the last couple of minutes to win?

Well, this older couple from Tennessee was seated right down from me, and was razzing me the whole game long in a nice way. Since we were losing I had to take it most of the game.

But, when we won on that last second 3, I jumped out of my seat, and got down on my knees in front of them, spread my arms and said ” Well, how do you like me now?” And they just laughed. (Infectious laugh.)

(And I, of course, laughed too.)

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What primal impulses drive the passion in each of us to follow the pack, the tribe…the team.

Whatever it is, Rob Hickerson has it in spades for the Cards.

He brings down the thunder of the Card faithful, and makes the old Hall shake with mad-dog ferocity in tight games. He sends in the Cards’ most valuable Sixth Man.

By personal example, Rob teaches and shows this incredible passion to his son–and to all Card fans.

Rob says he tries to find one fan– just one fan–at a time to get fired up.

Can you help Rob find and excite that one fan –within you? Whether you’re in the heat of the Hall, or even if you’ve got your big potato parked on your own couch.

Whether the Cards are 20 points ahead… or particularly when the team is way down.

Will you jump up on your (figurative) chair… and yell like Hell?

If you can do that, you’ve learned the  greatest lesson Rob has for any fan.