[Sly Fox]

You've heard some of old hags talk about how there used to be a tradition of tossing toilet paper on the court after the first bucket. Well I found a pic in an old Selah I had resting on bookshelf.

*** I pulled my mega-sized pic down since PAmedic posted the smaller one ***

You used to be able to tthrow things on the court one time and then get a warning. The NCAA changed the rules to make it a technical foul the first time something hit the floor abd the tradition immediately died. But I'm sure Scar has some stories to tell.

[bigsmooth]

was LU not one of the offenders that forced the NCAA"S hand?

[PAmedic]

Great pic SLY: I sized it down for ya- boy does THAT bring back memories of ol' Liberty Gym.
Man, that used to make the refs and other teams mad- even though they knew it was coming.

[LUconn]

Man, that's so freakin cool. LUPD will come and stare at you 3 feet from your face if you even say things sometimes. I can't imagine what would happen if we tried somethign like that. That must have been pretty freaking annoying for the players. Did they have the thowing of marshmellows in the stands and at the other team during football games tradition when you guys were there? Marshmellows have since been banned. Those bag checkers at the gate got like 4 bags off of me the first time they checked. They didn't believe that I was simply going to eat them.

[Sly Fox]

I can't speak for Scar, but I think most of the players were cool with it. They knew it was coming and as a result handled the break in action better than opposing teams.

To be honest, it helped boost attendance because even non-sports fans wanted to be party of the action.

[Baldspot]

...and then imagine the students being able to reach up and hit the metal air conditioner ducts in the Multi-Purpose Bldg. Talk about home court advantage. I remember Ed Dobsom threatening to stop delivering TP to the dorms during the basketball season. He almost had a smile on his face though. I think the ladies were a little upset at that.

[Sly Fox]

I had forgotten about the banging on the A/C ducts. That place could get seriously loud. The place may not have won any design awards, but it had tremendous atmosphere on game nights.

It did get rather tough to use the restrooms the 24 hours before tipoff. I remeber there were times when I just had to hold it until I got to work since there weren't any other options.

But it was all worth it when the TP would coming cascading from all directions onto the court. It was awe-inspiring.

And yes, we were one of a handful of schools that really took it to the extreme forcing the NCAA's hand into changing regulations in the middle of the season. They were worried it would catch on everywhere.

The funniest instance didn't happen at Liberty Gym, it was at the old Mason-Dixon Conference Tourney at Randy Mac over in Ashland. It was the tourney semis and we loaded up several busloads of fans (all carrying a heavy supply of TP under our jackets). When we made out first bucket hundreds of TP rolls went soaring onto the floor. But what made it funny was that the Randy Mac people didn't know what to do. They didn't have a janitor handy so everyone stood around for awhile to figure out how to get all the paper off the floor. Eventually, the players got invloved in the cleanup and the game continued. But the look of shock & horror on the locals when we unleashed that aerial assault was priceless.

[TIMSCAR20]

Ok, the throw back pick of me in action was enough to make me tear up inside but now you show the tp tradition? Priceless! What a tradition. I actually grew up with that tradition in Philly when the Big 5 basketball rivalry was at it's peak, the fans from Both Schools would do it on each first basket since they were all Philly schools. It was hilarious when a shot would look like it was going in but it comes out and you still get 5 or 6 cats that throw the paper and look like idiots. For some reason in the mid 80's it got out of hand in like a 1 month span when kids at Syracuse and St Johns started throwing oranges and apples in the Carrier dome and MSG. That got dangerous and the NCAA made a rule across the board to put a stop to the madness. It was a great tradition in Philly and at Liberty for sure. Our gym crew had the clean up down to a science. What an atmosphere!

[Big -e-]

What year was that? I'm guessing the 87-88 season cuz' not only do I see BA, but I also see the mullet of Mark Tellechea to the right.

Definitely the loudest gym in the state at the time.

[TIMSCAR20]

87-88 is the year and the team is Longwood. I see my boy Bobby Dobson the short point guard on the right. He is a coach up in the Northern Region in Northern VA now. Small world because I run into him all the time it seems. I saw him at the VA state semi finals in Richmond a few weeks back. And yes that is Mark "serious" Tellachea.

[mrmacphisto]

That's awesome... reminds me of the marshmallows during football games. *sigh*

[Just John]

And then there was the chant that some started during football games against Morehead St.

[A.G.]

Priceless!