Just got home from Pittsburgh. SLU played three games in three days up there, and I got the signs and made the trek.
While I was up there, I spoke to Kyle Whelliston of MidMajority.com and ESPN. Kyle is a really nice guy with a passion for College Hoops. He was nice enough to include me in his blog posting today where we talked about SLU amongst other things. Below is the part about the SignGuy:
There was at least one person who’s more enthusiastic about the Houston Baptist win than Coach Majerus. There he was in a halfcourt 200-level seat, holding a series of hand-made posterboards featuring the Billiken logo, plays on player names, and an inspiring Latin phrase about the team’s new coach (“Ad Majerus Dei Gloriam”) that he’d later describe as “a Jesuit thing.”
SLUSignGuy turns out to be Steve Rogers. He lives in D.C. but gets out to SLU (pronounced “sloo”) games often. He’s a Saint Louis University legend, even appearing at the groundbreaking of the school’s new gym this summer to hold a special sign (“Home Sweet Home”). He runs a rotation of about 20 signs on 10 foam-filled posterboards. One for each upperclassman, a few for special occasions, and he carries them all around in an artist’s portfolio.
“There are a lot of sign guys in Missouri,” Steve explained. “Everyone knows about the Cardinals sign guy from being on TV all the time during the playoffs. He’s a Missouri State guy, and he gives them signs too. But those are professionally printed, so that’s kinda like cheating. I make these myself, 100 percent.”
In addition to his SignGuy duties, Steve also runs billikens.com, one of the more successful fan-run one-team forum/blog/info sources out there. He’s even pushed the The athletic website is SLUBillikens.com, which might be your third or fourth guess if all you had was a browser’s address bar.
“I’ve had the domain since 5th grade,” he said. “They contacted me years ago, but they haven’t asked for the domain… yet. They just wanted a disclaimer on every page saying that we were unofficial and didn’t. ”
The next day, I sat with SLUSignGuy in the last row of the lower bowl, directly behind the basket, and watched the second half of the Billikens’ tourney-closing contest against the hosts from Pitt. As the Panthers slowly, steadily and surely wear the blue-clads down to a nub (despite Majerus’ frantic guard rotation), Steve recounted the recent history of SLU hoops: a 1998 first-round win over future A-10 foe Massachusetts under Charlie Spoonhour, a 2000 bid with Lorenzo Romar before he left for Washington, and the excruciatingly slow-paced and decidedly “unsexy” style of Brad Soderberg.
“Yeah, we’re a mid-major,” Steve said. “SLU basketball is the little engine that could.”
I asked him about some of the rumors circulating this decade about the school applying for membership in America’s top mid-major league, the Missouri Valley, a conference that has its headquarters virtually right down the street from SLU’s campus.
“If we did join the Valley, that would lock us in,” he replied. “We’d be a mid-major forever, we’d never be able to get out of it. It’d never happen.”
Barry Eberhardt, the Billikens’ new power forward, drives the baseline and throws it down. “Yes!” Steve yelled out suddenly in the momentarily hushed arena, pumping his fist wildly, then reaching for his “How Scary Is Barry” sign.
“Sorry about that,” he said after composing himself. “But sometimes I can’t control myself when it comes to the Billikens. I mean, c’mon, this is college basketball… gotta love it.”