Posts Tagged ‘Jayhawks’
Pissy Rivers
The Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball team is kicking off the official start to a new basketball season with the 25th Annual Late Night in the Phog. Hopes are running high this year with dreams of reaching Indianapolis for the Final Four. My brother-in-law, Phil Priebe, already is planning the trip.
Like all good fans I am beginning to sharpen my game, too. You might ask what preparation I have to do? It’s not too hard to sit on your butt and watch young men play basketball.
Oh, but the passionate fans know there is much that can be done in the stands or in front of the T.V. to turn the tide of close games in the favor of your team. So that I am prepared when I’m needed I have been refining my technique to deliver the most powerful hex that I know… The Pissy Rivers.
I learned this mysterious curse from my friend, eighteen year classmate (kindergarten through super senior year at KU) and fellow Greg Dreiling Fan Club member Scott Focke, aka Scooter. The Pissy Rivers is relatively easy to describe but extremely hard to execute.
The basic moves of the hex are simple. Cross the first and second fingers of your writing hand. Place your hand with crossed-fingers casually behind your back. Do not make fanfare of what you are doing. At the crucial moment in the game, quickly swing your hand and crossed fingers from behind your back as if you are throwing an underhand curve ball. Snap your wrist just before your arm fully extends. And, at the moment your hand jerks, whisper (or if you are alone in front of a T.V. shout) “Pissy Rivers.”
Sounds simple doesn’t it. Only the masters are consistently effective. There is a lot that can go wrong when casting a Pissy Rivers. The hex can even be reversed on your own team. Overuse is the surest way to ruin the Pissy Rivers. If someone sees or hears you throw the curse, it can kill the spell.
Some people believe a double Pissy Rivers – crossing all four fingers rather than just two – is more powerful than the traditional version of the curse. I’m not a believer in the double Pissy Rivers. I’ve seen it backfire just as often as I’ve seen it work.
Skeptical about all this? Think this is nothing but superstition and coincidence? Well I have evidence.
Scott Focke propelled the Jayhawks over Michigan State in the Sweet 16 of the 1986 NCAA tournament and on to the Final Four. Several members of the Dreiling gang scored tickets to the game in Kansas City’s Kemper arena. It was one of the most exciting games I’ve seen. It included controversy – a stopped clock for 15 seconds when KU was trailing – and role player heroics.
The Jayhawks were down by six points with just over one minute to go. I was a nervous wreck. Scott told me not to panic. I shouted back, “There’s only sixty seconds left in the whole *#%$@ season, don’t tell me not to panic.” But, Scott just gave me a look.
The Jayhawks began to foul the moment Michigan State touched the ball in a last ditch effort to close the seemingly insurmountable gap. That’s when Scott went to work from the top row of the arena.
Michigan State missed the front end of a one-and-one two consecutive times in the last minute of the game allowing KU to tie the score on an Archie Marshall tip-in with just a few seconds left. I still feel hoarse thinking how loud and long we screamed with joy.
KU’s best players, Danny Manning and Ron Kellogg, had fouled out of the game. But the momentum had already swung the way of the Jayhawks and fan favorite Calvin Thompson led the way to a 10 point victory in overtime.
I didn’t see it, of course. But, Scott told us later that he’d used the Pissy Rivers when the Michigan State players were shooting their clutch free throws. That’s the moment I became a believer.
Mario's Miracle Shot
I use it myself now when the moment is right. I’m not a master like Scott. But, occasionally I do my part to help out the ‘Hawks.
I don’t want to claim too much credit. But, I was in the stands in San Antonio when Mario Chalmers hit his miracle shot and the Jayhawks won the national title.
And, you might remember, the Memphis Tigers did miss a few key foul shots down the stretch…
Just sayin’.
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Picture Credits:
Late Night in the Phog Logo from KU Athletic Department
Jimmy Greason
Jimmy Greason and my mom taught me what it means to be a next door neighbor.
Jimmy was an interesting neighbor with an interesting personality. He cared deeply about our family. He could be very abrasive. He took great interest in my brother Alec and me. He mostly talked about himself. He told wonderful stories of the history of Atwood. I dreaded going to his house to hear them.
Jimmy and his brother Kermit lived in the house just to the east of ours. Their house was tiny, like several on the block. It had a small front room, three small bedrooms (I think or was it two), a kitchen and a screened in back porch. The yard, which I mowed, was a tangle of weeds.
Their brother John Frank had his own place, the Little Ponderosa, just west of Highway 25. I noticed that John Frank often slept in his brothers’ house, in the afternoons. I didn’t think it a bit strange as a boy.
Kermit was the long-time, much loved Rawlins County Clerk. Jimmy had been a pharmacist and proprietor of Greason’s Drug Store. My mother-in-law, Betty Mickey, worked there at one time.
I have little memory of the drug store. He retired when I was very young. Even though he was our neighbor I always thought of Greason’s as the other drug store. We did all our business at Currier’s. I have only one memory of being in his store. I was walking downtown on my own, perhaps to my dad’s office, and decided to go in. It was dark, crowded by large booths and dirty. I turned on my heels the moment I entered and did a quick exit.
Jimmy is remembered by many people for many things. I remember him as a man who seldom left his house; a passionate fan of the Kansas Jayhawks, and a piano player. Most of all I remember he suffered from emphysema.
Jimmy loved KU as much as, if not more, than anyone I know – as much as my Grandpa Creighton, as much as Irv Hayden, as much as Phil Priebe.
Jimmy was notorious, at least in our house, for never hearing the fourth quarter of a KU football game. As we all know, KU sometimes struggled in football. Jimmy listened to all the games on the radio. The volume was so high we could listen in our kitchen, too. At some point each game, Jimmy would curse loudly. Then, we’d hear a crash followed by silence. If I went to his house later in the day, as I often did, I would find his transistor radio lying on the floor.
One of Jimmy’s great disappointments, at least one of which I’m aware, was the time he was snubbed by John Riggins, the great Jayhawk and Washington Redskins running back. Riggins was going to attend an event of some sort in Atwood and stay with Jimmy and Kermit. They spent time and money to get their house in order, which was always in a state of disrepair. New concrete was poured on the front steps, the crumbling back porch was rebuilt and the interior was almost sparkling – almost.
Riggins never showed. Jimmy was deeply hurt. My mom never forgave Riggins. When Riggins led the Redskins to a Super Bowl victory, some Jayhawk fans celebrated. My mom offered a few choice words.
By the time I knew Jimmy, he didn’t feel well most of the time. Emphysema contracted from years of chain smoking was consuming his small body.
I seldom heard Jimmy play the piano. I’m told he was good. The piano was the most prominent piece of furniture in his house. The stand-up piano always covered in sheet music, keyboard open, ash tray on the side full of butts as if Hoagy Carmichael had just played. (I knew Hoagy as Stoney Carmichael from the Flintstones but that’s for another time.)
Occasionally, on his good days, Jimmy would play a Ragtime tune for his audience of one or two – Kermit and me. Even on his bad days, Jimmy would tell stories – often the same ones over and over. He told many stories about Atwood. He was, after all, almost as old as the town itself. His family was among the earliest to settle in Rawlins County.
I was a young boy. I was not a good listener. Sadly, I remember few of his history lessons. The story I remember most came from his drug store days.
“The teenagers who came into the drug would play the same damn song every day,” he declared in a cranky way as if it happened only yesterday. “Every day, it was that damn Raggmopp. Over and over again, I’d hear R-A-G-G-M-O-P-P Raggmopp. I took the record out of the juke box, out to the alley and smashed the damn thing.”
Jimmy called our house three or four nights a week, if not more – or so it seemed to me. I dreaded his calls. It meant he was having a bad day. The emphysema was getting the best of him.
My mom sent us over to help straight away. No negotiations.
When I arrived, I refilled the coffee can with water and replaced it on his furnace stove. It was Jimmy’s homemade humidifier.
Jimmy found relief when the gunk in his lungs was loosened up. That was next on the nightly routine. I would sit on the couch and work the vibrator over his back. He was always quiet at first. As his chest loosened, he’d begin to tell his stories.
I would gather up the day old – sometimes three days’ old – coffee grinds and egg shells out of the kitchen sink, bag them in a grocery sack and take it to the garbage can just before I left.
It was not an eight, ten, twelve year-old’s favorite way to spend an evening.
We don’t choose our neighbors. We have to deal with whoever moves in. We can accept them for who they are or wish they were someone else.
We are lucky in Longmont. We have neighbors on both sides who embrace us for who we are – the good, bad and annoying, which I can imagine is a bit. I like to think we do the same.
That was our relationship with Jimmy Greason. He accepted the nuisances of young children living nearby – balls and stones hitting his house, shouts and screams interrupting his rest on uncomfortable days. He never complained. He never chased us off. I felt as though his yard was also ours.
My mom insisted that we return his tolerance with help when we were able to lend a hand. I am sure I complained more than I should. But I’m thankful that she did. I learned a lot about being a neighbor.
March Madness
Greg Dreiling Fan Club 1984
It’s my favorite time of the sports year. It is the time of year that hope springs eternal for all college teams in the tournament. And, a great time of the year to be a Jayhawk.
I have had the great good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. KU has won two national championships in the past twenty years – 1988 and 2008 – and I was in the stands alongside my friend and now brother-in-law Phil Priebe both times.
Phil, who lived on the same dorm floor as Scott Focke, and I became friends our freshman year at KU as members of the Greg Dreiling fan club. We arrived at KU the same year as Larry Brown. All three of us stayed for five years (many of us enjoyed a Super Senior year). We were grateful that it took the time it did to graduate so we could enjoy the championship year of 1988. It was worth every penny of extra tuition.
The year before we arrived at KU the Jayhawks had a second straight losing season with just 13 wins. It’s the last time KU’s basketball teams have ever had a losing season.
Larry Brown began to rebuild the magic of Allen Field House. KU lost only five home games in five years. We were there to witness it all.
Seats in Allen Field House were easy to come by early our freshman year. Nothing like the campouts we had to endure to secure seats during the Super Senior Championship Year. Nothing like today.
In one of the first games I saw as a student, KU was blown out by Kentucky. The stands were half full. The only other loss that season was to Oklahoma. By that time, the stands were full.
Calvin Thompson hit a half court shot to send the game into overtime – the shot was only worth two points in those days. But, Oklahoma dominated the extra period. Then, to our dismay, they proceeded to cut down our nets because they had secured a share of the Big 8 Championship. It sparked a heated rivalry that would last through Oklahoma’s Billy Tubbs era. I can still feel the outrage.
From that point forward, KU reeled off 55 straight home victories.
The Greg Dreiling Fan Club was born in a dorm room in Ellsworth Hall. About a dozen of us decided to paint our faces and make signs. We did it as a joke at first. People made fun of Dreiling. During halftime of one game Dreiling’s wife came to our seats and told us that Greg deeply appreciate our support. We felt guilty and compelled to continue the fan club in earnest for the rest of the season.
We all got a charge when Dreiling pointed up in the stands at us during introductions of the final home game. We also enjoyed getting our pictures in the papers. We made appearances in the Kansas City Star and the Wichita Eagle.
I missed only one or two games during my five years on campus. I was active in state politics at that time – to the extent that’s possible for a 22 year-old. I chose to attend the Republican Kansas Day events in Topeka on January 30, 1988. That was the day Kansas State ended the Jayhawks home winning streak. I was in shock listening to the game being called on the radio.
We would lose two more games at home that season – to Duke in overtime and, again, to Oklahoma. The ’88 season was a struggle. Danny Manning was the only NBA caliber player on the team. The Jayhawks finished the regular season a mere 20 and 10.
We sipped our schooners at Louis’ on the eve of Selection Sunday speculating that KU would have to settle for the NIT. We were thrilled the next day when KU was given a six seed.
The Final Four was in Kansas City at Kemper Arena that year – the last time it was ever played in a small arena. Phil and I had managed to win two tickets in the NCAA lottery for the semi-final and championship games. Phil insisted that we try. I thought it was a lark.
We planned to sell our tickets and make a “fortune.” We assumed KU would make an early exit from the tournament. We’d have no need to go to Kemper ourselves.
I called a ticket broker I found in the classified ads in USA Today (people still used the classified ads in newspapers in those days). I made the call from the storeroom office behind the Kansas House of Representatives where I was working as an intern.
I don’t remember the price the broker offered me. It was a lot by our standards. I distinctly remember what he said when I informed him that we were going to wait to see how KU did in the first two rounds of the tournament before we made a sale.
“What are you boys smokin’ in Lawrence?”
But, that weekend, the magic began. KU beat Xavier and dodged a game with number three North Carolina State who lost to Murray State. KU barely slipped past Murray State and then handled Vanderbilt who had upset number two Pittsburg. Kansas State did KU the biggest favor all defeating number one Purdue in the round of sixteen.
Joni sat bravely amongst an apartment full of KU fans as the Jayhawks defeated the Wildcats to advance to the Final Four. We had a spontaneous celebration in our parking lot dozens upon dozens of students pouring out of doors from all directions.
Kemper Arena, Kansas City
I wore my Atwood baseball jersey during the first tournament game. Each round Phil told me I had to wear it again for good luck. Who knows what role this charm played in the Jayhawks’ victories over Duke and Oklahoma in the Final Four – I’ll take whatever credit anyone wants to give.
The three teams that beat KU at home were the last three teams they defeated to win the championship. It spawned one of my favorite all time t-shirts: Don’t Beat Us at Home (on the front); Paybacks Are a Bitch (on the back).
Phil and I would never have forgiven ourselves if we’d sold the tickets to the broker before the tournament began. The first half of the KU v Oklahoma game is still the best I’ve ever seen – fifty to fifty at the intermission.
The celebration that followed in Lawrence was like nothing I’ve taken part in before or since.
Celebrating at the Toll Booth
We had to drive back from Kansas City to Lawrence, of course. The Kansas Turnpike toll both attendant that night was the ever present man with no mustache. He’d been in the booth every time I passed for five years. It only seemed fitting that he be part of our celebration.
Back on campus, I ran into Brad Finley by the Jayhawk statue in front of Strong Hall. We embraced. We jumped. We yelled. We carried on for 10 minutes or more. Then, we both disappeared back into the celebrating crowd.
My 1988 memories closed out two months later. Mark Frame and I went to Armadillos for a Sunday night drink and some food. The only other people in the restaurant were Larry Brown and his assistant, Bob Hill.
We sat at the table next to them and watched a replay of the championship game. Bob Hill mentioned how nervous Scooty Barry was shooting free throws in the closing moments of the game. “I think he was going to pee his pants,” Hill said. Brown smile and laughed but never said a word.
Mark and I didn’t speak either. We just thought we were cool to be watching the game with Larry Brown.
Little did we know that we all were in our final weeks in Lawrence.
