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The voice of USF Athletics, Jim Louk, will routinely put down his radio headset and pick up the pen to share his perspective on the history of USF Athletics.
Louk has been broadcasting games for 27 years and is the resident historian in the Athletics Department hallways ... This week he remembers the 1992 basketball road trip to Virginia Tech and Tulane ...
The Best Road Trip Ever
Back when I was just starting out, a veteran broadcaster was talking to me about travel and he told me that eventually the trips, the airports, the hotels, and to a degree even the games would run together so much that it would become hard to distinguish a lot of them from each other.
Truer words were never spoken.
Chances are if you see me on a USF football road trip wandering around the hotel lobby these days I'm probably thinking one of three things:
1. “I wonder if I've ever stayed in this place before.”
2. “I wonder if it was for basketball or football.”
3. “I wish I could remember my room number so I didn't have to keep walking around the lobby like this.”
Over the years the airlines have come and gone. Eastern, Piedmont and even People Express were once staples of Bulls travel. For awhile a USF Athletics sponsorship with USAir meant virtually every trip went through Charlotte. With Eastern, every trip went through Atlanta.
The cities have changed too. Annual trips to Norfolk, Richmond and Mobile seem like a lifetime ago, probably because they were, well, a lifetime ago.
Of course there are plenty of trips that I still remember pretty clearly, especially if something unusual happened regarding the game or the travel associated with it.
Still, recently when I was asked what my all time favorite road trip was, I surprised myself a bit by having an immediate answer.
No question about it. It started Feb. 21, 1992 and ended that Feb. 25; a basketball road swing starting at Virginia Tech and ending at Tulane.
It was quite a combination of things that made it special for me. Most importantly, my son was about to be born. I was still in the clear on this trip (the due date was a couple of weeks away), but this would be the last time I would have to travel before he was born, and that was a relief.
Better still, I'd be conveniently out of town on baby shower day.
And, the Bulls were playing some great basketball.
It was the first season in the Metro Conference for us and we were 15-8 with a three-game winning streak as we hit the road for Blacksburg. We'd been to the NCAA and the NIT in the past two seasons, and we were confident we could make it back to the field of 64 in '92.
With that backdrop, we left for Virginia Tech on Feb. 21. Blacksburg is in a beautiful part of the state, but it was never an easy journey. It was a flight to Roanoke (and never a direct flight) and then a bus ride in to the Virginia mountains and, eventually, to Blacksburg.
Virginia Tech was well respected even then, and in some ways our win over them at home three weeks earlier had helped validate our presence in the new league.
On this trip, a 75-62 win in Blacksburg completed a season sweep over the Hokies and sent us on our way to part two of the journey: New Orleans.
In the years that Tulane and the Bulls were in the same league (Metro and Conference USA) we usually stayed in a hotel right on the edge of the French Quarter. On this trip, it was Mardi Gras time. The atmosphere was exciting, and the Bulls had a big showdown upcoming with Tulane.
If you didn't follow college basketball in the '80s and '90s, you might not know the Tulane story. Their program was shut down for awhile, then resuscitated by Coach Perry Clark. He put together an athletic, talented and deep team that pressed on defense and ran wild on offense. They would frequently make five for five substitutions, shuttling players in and out while the opposition tried to catch their breath. “The Posse” had led Tulane to a national ranking and made the Green Wave a big story by the time the Bulls visited in 1992.
At that time, Tulane played in the on-campus Fogelman Arena. What a place. It seated 3,500, and had all bench seating with large, painted-over windows near the top of the arena. There was no air conditioning. Even in February, New Orleans can be warm, and I can remember one game when play had to be stopped so the condensation could be wiped off the glass backboards.
You've probably heard players and coaches talk about old arenas where the fans are “right on you”. For broadcasters, nothing compared to Fogelman Arena. Our broadcast location was right near the Bulls' bench, and the first row of benches for fans was so close that I could feel the knees of the people behind me leaning against my chair. It's nothing short of a miracle that in all the visits there not one Tulane fan ever decided to lean forward and join our broadcast crew on the air. Anyone sitting behind me could have said anything at any time.
If you know USF basketball history, you know the Bulls put a rope around The Posse that day and beat Tulane 81-76 to complete an absolutely great Metro Conference road swing. Now 17-8, the Bulls would be invited to their second NCAA Tournament less than a month later. It was a great, great time for USF basketball.
We got home on the 25th, and my son was born exactly one week later. Of course it was on the day of the last home game for the seven seniors that had led to Bulls through their post season run.
Yes, I broadcast the game that night.
Still paying for that one nearly two decades later, but that of course is another story.
GO BULLS!
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