http://www.bulldawgjunction.com/news/story.php?article=183
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<div id="article_body" class="body_copy"> <p class="MsoNormal"></p> </div><div id="article_deck" class="deck_copy"> During my years of playing college basketball, I've heard some pretty good trash talking and heckling. The only problem was most of the heckling was directed at me. It wasn't always easy being the Donald Trump (the hair) of College Basketball. </div> <div id="article_body" class="body_copy"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Man Hammock Anyone?</span>
My favorite heckling story took place at the University of Missouri. Their student section is called The Antlers and they are nothing short of hilarious. The game went down as an ESPN Classic, as it went three overtimes with Mizzou winning in the end. But the play of the day went to The Antlers. For most of the game every time one of our players went to the free throw line, The Antlers would try to throw them off by holding up huge pictures of half naked girls with thongs on. The posters were right in the sight line of the backboard and it was impossible not to see it as my teammates shot free throws. I had been playing pretty well, and as the game got to the second half, I got fouled and went to the line. One Dribble, two dribbles, deep breath, look up to shoot, and there is a huge life size picture of a male body builder in a thong. I couldn't help but laugh and had to take one more dribble before I shot. All game long they had been holding up pictures of half naked hotties, and for me they saved a picture of some dude's muscle butt. It is pretty embarrassing when the student section insinuates to 20,000 fans at the game that you are light in the loafers. I asked their hottest cheerleader for her number after the game just to prove to the fans that I was as straight as Burt Reynolds, but she said I was too young, ouch.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Arkansas was another of my favorite places to play. Arkansas has a group of 300lb men who sit near the court during the entire pre-game shoot around and warm-ups. They all could be on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. We were the Road Warriors, and not often had any opposing crowds broken our concentration, but these Big-Ins got to us. I remember them having signs saying, Pee Odor Pee Odor, and yelling this at Piotr Stelmach for the entirety of the game. They kept asking Wesley Morgan how he could possibly keep his balance while stretching with that huge noggin'. Don't worry Wesley your head is not that big. They repeatedly asked Marcus Campbell why he looked like Tarzan and played like Jane. They asked Seth Cannon why we had a body builder as a walk-on. They always made our trip to Fayetteville enjoyable by entertaining us and letting us win. Thanks Hogs!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Another reason I like playing in chicken coup country is my first year during pre-game shooting their cheerleaders were going through their routines, and we were standing there watching the formations and leg kicks when all of a sudden it got a little more interesting. One of the cheerleaders in the back walked up behind one of the cheerleaders in the front and pulled her pants down. But to her surprise the cheerleader in the front didn't have any shorts, underwear, or lollies on under her pants. This was also to our surprise, and we now felt like we knew this poor girl a lot better. The next year we obviously stood at mid court and watched all of the cheerleaders' routines just hoping.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Dumb Freshmen</span>
Oklahoma State's Henry Iba Arena is one of the coolest gyms in the country, the fans are right on the court and there isn't a bad seat in the house. We were playing there after losing to Missouri in triple overtime and were on ESPN for the second straight game. Our coaches were pretty uptight which made our players pretty uptight. As our team started leaving the court after shoot around one of our players slipped and fell right in front of the student section, because his warm up pants came below his shoes. The entire crowd was laughing as he laid sprawled out across the floor. As he got up one of our freshman said, here let me help you and ripped the tear away pants right off of him. I have absolutely no clue why my fellow freshman teammate thought it was the appropriate time to be funny. Our coach saw the whole thing and didn't find it funny that one of his players couldn't keep from falling, and that another player thought it was proper to pull his teammates pants off before the biggest game of our lives. So as we trotted back out to the court after getting the scolding of our lives, right when we got to the students they began to try and pull each others pants down and wouldn't stop for the rest of warm-ups. This annoyed our coaches even more and we were trying not to laugh.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Gorgeous Gator</span>
I always loved playing Florida because I knew one special hottie was going to be watching. Who is that? It would be Matt Walsh's girlfriend, playmate and UF student Lauren Anderson! I actually liked Walsh, maybe it was because he was the only guy that got heckled more than me, but we always got a long well. However, when the game was tight and we were all at the free-throw line somebody would always start the conversation off something like this,"Hey Walsh, I've got last months issue up in my room." We'd all laugh, partly because we knew half of our team did, and probably half of his team did too. But then Walsh would say, you guys may be winning, then point to the royalty in the crowd, but I'm going home with that tonight! Well played Mr. Walsh, we may have won the battle, but you've won the war.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There is no bigger compliment then when a student section heckles you. This is when you know that you have made it in the SEC. I was fortunate enough to achieve this honor many times. Bama's students booed me for an entire game because I tackled Jean Felix on a lay-up early in the game. I wasn't trying to hurt him, but you're not going to shoot an easy lay up on us either. South Carolina's students chanted about how I reminded them of a certain reproductive organ of a female, after I took a charge on Carlos Powell and got my wind knocked out.<span> </span> LSU's students always yelled at me to go get Lawrence Roberts some water, and I usually would, just <span> </span>to take their ammunition away. Student's have held up signs that read SCREECH, POWER OUTTAGE, POWER RANGER, GAY POWER, or AUSTIN POWERS, but that wasn't really all that clever. I mean who wouldn't want to be Austin Powers; sweet ride, dating Elizabeth Hurley, your teeth and chest hair is sexy, you get to wear vintage suits and talk in a ridiculous British accent. Please I'd like to be him 6 days out of the week.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">At Rupp Arena, the KenSucky fans would chant Ken and Barbie every time I shot a free-throw. Rupp is an intimidating arena, but their fans heckled their own coach more than the opposing players. Yeah, their wine and cheese crowd really knows how to hurt your feelings. And we still got to hug Ashley Judd afterwards, which was our second coolest moment behind taking a picture with Ann Kournikova in NYC.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Crossing the Line</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I enjoyed the heckling most of the time, but a few times it got out of hand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The worst heckling story that I witnessed was when we went to Vandy my junior year. As the team bus was winding through campus taking us to the theatre (their arena), we noticed a display outside one of the frat houses. It was a huge tombstone with a marked grave, and it said R.I.P. Patrick Dennehy on it. For those who don't remember, Dennehy was Lawrence's teammate at Baylor that got shot by their fellow teammate Carlton Dotson. Then when we get in the gym, one of the kids in their student section had the same thing written on a poster, and our manager Erick Casto told their administrators, and they kicked the kid out. The fact that they would try and use a teammate's death to get in Lawrence's head was quite appalling.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Is there a Poland, Alabama?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">If there was one place I didn't like going as a player it was Coleman Coliseum. I don't want to generalize their whole fan base, but I heard more crossing the line statements there then all the other places in the SEC combined. To start with they had fishing poles with dollar bills on the ends of the line. As we would come out of the locker room they would cast these lines at our faces. It got a little ugly a few times, but I think it was actually the only time we made money, by snatching a few bills. They were too ignorant to put fake money on the end of their lines.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">One year we had this Bama fan sitting right near the bench, and for 40 minutes he yelled Ignerski you communist @#$@(!*, go back to Russia we don't want you here. To my surprise, when I turned around and saw the guy he was an older man that was dressed as though he was well-to-do. I was thinking first of all I can't believe you are making racial slurs, secondly you know you didn't actually graduate from Bama, thirdly Ignerski was from Poland and if you could read the program the "ski" at the end of his name would be a fairly accurate indicator of what European ethnicity he was. But I would have lost the Bama man at this point, and <span> </span>didn't want to further send him into a brainteaser trying to figure out if Poland was a communist country or not.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We all remember the bottle throwing incident at Ole Miss. For as rowdy as the State and Mississippi crowd get for the football match-up it's a different feeling for the basketball game. The game is so intense, and every fan in the gym is so concentrated on each play that the hatred usually doesn't rear its head. What people misconstrue about this game is that the guys on the floor don't talk trash because we really respect how hard each team is playing and we are usually trying to catch our breath. I'd say our team was as close with the Ole Miss players as any team in the league, and we always knew it would be the most physical and most demanding games of the year. However, every State fan remembers Zimmerman driving the length of the floor and laying it in to beat Ole Miss at the Tad Pad. It was too much for the Ole Mss fans to handle and they started chucking beer bottles at us. I was laughing in shock when I saw them throwing things, but when Z got hit and our manager Vince Ford got hit, I was like they're not offering us beer to celebrate, they're trying to take our heads off.`</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I enjoyed the rare clever insult by the opposing fans, and I enjoyed even more sarcastically waving over to the losing crowd as we would leave the floor. My favorite hecklers were always the young children and really old people that would shock you, by pointing and screaming "Power You Suck", like I had killed somebody in their family. I've met some characters on the road in the SEC, but all in all it was pretty fun being the object of ridicule and insults. I guess I have to wait to get married to experience this again! Just Kidding!</p> </div>
