A Trip to the Pit (Part 1)

UD FlyerNation has a friend (of the blog) who was lucky enough, if you want to call it that, to attend Dayton's game against New Mexico at the Pit. He is a diehard Flyers fan and a UD alum. He was kind enough to recount the adventure that is a Dayton Flyers road game. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call this friend Gooch. Here is Gooch's retelling of his trek to Albuquerque.

The first problem is figuring where to begin a tale like this — one so dependent on the chronology of the events.

I easily could start at the beginning of the 18 hour train ride to Albuquerque, delayed at Chatsworth station, waiting for the police to clean up the body of the guy who jumped in front of the train going the other way and my swearing to myself that it wasn’t an omen of things to come. Because it wasn't. Of more interest is probably my pacing up and down the aisles of the train, wearing my Flyers sweatshirt and trying to make eye contact with everyone wearing a New Mexico Lobos sweatshirt in the hope of some recognition. But nothing came of that, either.

It's better to start at the beginning of the game — where all good tales should, at Chris(t) acknowledging our existence. I am in the company of 2 ½ other Flyer fans (the ½ is a Michigan State fan who loves seeing Tom Izzo’s protégé succeed, but who has lived in Albuquerque for 7 years). We assume our seats here:


Old folks to the left, student section to the right and the Flyer bench right in front of us. Immediately when we get to our seats, we see the Flyers conducting lay-up drills on the opposite side of the court. They swoop, they lay it up and sometimes dunk, then run to the end of the line and gain a practice rebound.

The rebounder returns to the end of the opposing line ready for his chance to attack the rim. In this case the rim attacker is He himself. On his way to the end of the line, he looks toward the crowd, toward us. Jeff (MSU fan) sits down, Haskins to his right, Knachel and then me closest to the students’ section. Immediately upon seeing our mighty Flyers warming up, Knachel and I break the lethargic New Year’s day hum of the Lobo fans finding their seats by yelling, "Go Flyers!" toward our squad. Heads turn as most are initially shocked that any Flyers fans made the trip and that they would have the temerity to debase their cathedral with heretical yells. Of course we have no reverence for their home as we hail from a better church. On his way to the end of the line Chris(t) looks up to the crowd, spots Knachel (1969 CJ throw back jersey [the one in which he was concussed]) and me (Rob Lowery nee Ryan Perryman jersey) pointing to the Dayton emblazoned on our chests. Chris(t) sees us, unsheathes his mighty right arm and points once at Knachel and once at me. I wonder what this omen portends. In retrospect, looking at his stat line (8 points, 10 rebounds) it probably does no more than negate the suicide on the tracks earlier in my journey.

A Flyer fan we located earlier — a stick thin man dressed in red and Columbia blue sitting on the edge of his seat cheering every Flyer player (and Fabrizius in street clothes) — witnesses our anointing. His face that was in profile turns toward us and we see that he is boldly mustachioed and most likely is one of the UD graduates from the late '70s, early '80s whose picture can be found on the wall in the Deli. He points at us. I believe at that point, Knachel realizes he is the mouthpiece of Flyer fanaticism. I know I did.

We gain more acknowledgment from Josh Benson, yet I am snubbed by Rob Lowery, even though I’m wearing the exact same jersey he wore when he played a very sound game against St. Joe's last year. His lack of awareness seems significant now that we know how he finished the game (0-10 from three) No matter, Knachel and I are starting to understand our roles.

The Flyers finish their warm ups and head to the locker room for a spell. The arena begins to fill in, but it becomes apparent that even though it is billed as a sell-out, the arena won’t be full. Going into the game, I felt that Dayton had quite a few things going their way: 1. We got done playing one of our best offensive games against a lowly Boston University club while UNM had a marquee game against Texas Tech. Of course all Flyer fans know that we are better than TXTech, but the pollsters are simpletons. 2. The preparation that UNM needed to put into the TXTech game most likely precluded their preparations for us, while we could afford to look a little beyond BU toward the UNM game. 3. Oral Roberts already laid out the blueprint for how to beat UNM. We just had to do what they did. And 4. We have Chris Johnson.

Most importantly, however, was the fact that we would take the fans by surprise and neutralize the Pit. Prior to the game, Steve Alford needed to go on a media blitz to let the fans know that we were to be feared, calling us the most dangerous team they faced all year. Where the Texas Tech game sold out two weeks prior, our game still had 600 tickets available the day before. All of this translated into the fans coming into the arena, somewhat catatonic from their New Year ’s Eve celebration (which takes the form of an alarming amount of gunfire in ABQ for some reason). They expected a cake walk and certainly didn’t think that they would have to deal with rival fans. To the Flyers benefit, it took the UNM fans most of the game to warm up.

All of that being said, don’t believe UNM fans are ignorant. They bear many similarities to Flyer fans in their knowledge of their team and their love of the game. While we were walking from the car, I was stubbing out a joint we had smoked when a Lobo fan in full attire walked next to us. He noted Haskins and Knachel in full Flyer outerwear and began asking them about our team. He said to Knachel, "So, is Chris Johnson back from his concussion?" Knachel, shocked that he would not only recognize CJ, but that he would know he suffered a concussion replied, "Yeah, he came back last game. He should get a lot of minutes tonight." The man then said, "That stinks. I was hoping he’d be out this game. That guy is good."

Knachel looked at me dumbfounded. "Wow. That’s pretty cool that that guy knows about CJ."

We consistently encountered UNM fans who had paid some attention to our Flyers. They knew we had consistently been screwed out of the rankings and legitimately feared us. That wasn't the case for everyone, however. Especially the students.

My friend Jeff has one shining moment of repartee during the game. While I stand up and yell support for the Flyers during their pregame huddle, a young UNM student full of piss and vinegar makes his way down the aisle with two underclasswomen on each arm. He is wearing a New Mexico jersey and feels as though he needs to call me out. I'm in my zone, focused only on the Flyers, so it takes his biggest voice to get my attention. He points to his jersey. He tells me that his is the type of jersey that I should be wearing. He then mentions that his team is the one ranked and my team is just a bunch of nobodies. He lets me know that they will make shorter order of us than they did of Texas Tech (90-75). And that we might as well get our yelling out of the way now as there will be nothing to yell about at the end of the game. The two girls on his arms nod their heads in approval, even though they are clearly uncomfortable with the fight he was picking.

Distracted out of my focus, my mind is reeling with possible comebacks to the boy. Jeff then speaks up. Up until this point he has just sat with a sheepish grin watching the three Flyers he came with make spectacles of themselves. Coming from Detroit, he has an admiration for true fans, even though he doesn't feel very strongly about either team on this day. During the game he would clap for the Flyers, but this was the only time he raised his voice. He turns, and yells at the arrogant fan: "Your hubris is amusing!"

It ends up being the perfect comeback. The boy is so shocked at it, the fact that it is artful and that he isn"t positive what it means, that he has nothing more to say. In one fell swoop, it stops the student section from wanting to taunt us (for now) and gets the older fans surrounding us more on our sides. They appreciate true fans and I think they welcome fans who don’t resort to base vulgarities. We are UD.

There really isn't a lot more to say about the pregame events. I could bore you with our feelings eating green chili cheeseburgers at a pro UNM restaurant and the shabby service that our jerseys led to. I could also tell you about the Knachel-led expedition to meet Larry and Bucky which ended up with us yelling "Go Flyers" across the Miami Valley airwaves. But I won't. That would be tiresome.

The rest of the pregame looks eerily similar to a pregame at the D-rena. The visiting team runs on the court and gets lightly booed. Then the home team runs on, preceded by flag runners with the UNM logo accompanied by the team’s fight song. Player announcements:


And then tip off.

Check back later today or first thing tomorrow for part 2 of the trip to the Pit.