Memories of St. Johns - St Joes game

M

matt105

Well-known member
in the mid 1960's i had season tickets to st. johns games while I was on the Hillcrest campus . i met up with a group of guys from CBA who were die hard SJU fans and we traveled to many away games , including trips to DC , Boston Providence , blacksburg Va and College park Maryland . We also traveled down to philly to see us play Villanova and St. Joes. it was the years that Sonny Dove was on the team and one of the guys ( Bill Davidson ) often let a pigeon loose during the games and we would yell ' the Dove flies high " . Well we traveled down to philly for this game against St Joes and davidson brought a dead pigeon and and a live pigeon with him . As we were going through the turnstile at the Palestra , the bag with the dead pigeon fell to the ground and davidson casually pushed it ahead with his foot and picked it up inside the gate . we went to our seats and waited for the opportune time . When a time out was called davidson got up and threw the dead pigeon on the court and we all yelled out " The hawk is dead " and then he let the live pigeon loose and as it flew over the court we yelled " but the dove flies high " Those were great times and solidified my love for St. Johns basketball .
 
I recall St. Joe's being a regular on the schedule during the 70s...funny, I remember those handwritten banners that were posted in Alumni Hall reading "Don't look up when the Hawks are in town"
 
in the mid 1960's i had season tickets to st. johns games while I was on the Hillcrest campus . i met up with a group of guys from CBA who were die hard SJU fans and we traveled to many away games , including trips to DC , Boston Providence , blacksburg Va and College park Maryland . We also traveled down to philly to see us play Villanova and St. Joes. it was the years that Sonny Dove was on the team and one of the guys ( Bill Davidson ) often let a pigeon loose during the games and we would yell ' the Dove flies high " . Well we traveled down to philly for this game against St Joes and davidson brought a dead pigeon and and a live pigeon with him . As we were going through the turnstile at the Palestra , the bag with the dead pigeon fell to the ground and davidson casually pushed it ahead with his foot and picked it up inside the gate . we went to our seats and waited for the opportune time . When a time out was called davidson got up and threw the dead pigeon on the court and we all yelled out " The hawk is dead " and then he let the live pigeon loose and as it flew over the court we yelled " but the dove flies high " Those were great times and solidified my love for St. Johns basketball .
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Great story, Matt! Today, the PETA folks would be on you. I mean, how do "find" a dead pigeon?

On another note, are you going to Xavier March Madness on Friday? If so, I'll look out for you.
 
I recall St. Joe's being a regular on the schedule during the 70s...funny, I remember those handwritten banners that were posted in Alumni Hall reading "Don't look up when the Hawks are in town"
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I looked it up.

43-12 all time vs. St. Joseph's, but we haven't played them since January of 1980. I guess that once the Big East was formed, there was no more room on the schedule for them.
 
Where are we playing them?

For all those who think our home court arena is keeping fans away, I remember visiting the Palestra for a game many years ago. It was old then, not renovated in any way, but you knew you were at a special place, where only basketball and intense rivalries mattered. Playing ball in a place that didn't have upscale food, plush seating, or any of the then state of the art improvements actually felt right. The arena was about one step above wooden backboards. If I am not mistaken, they had a guy who sold peanuts there who was legendary. You'd pass your money down and he would toss you a bag. He had to be in his 60s even 30 years ago. Great memories, of gritty basketball. Big 5 battles there were amazing. Forget about point spreads. Huge underdogs usually gave favorites all they could handle, and won way more often then they should have.
 
in the mid 1960's i had season tickets to st. johns games while I was on the Hillcrest campus . i met up with a group of guys from CBA who were die hard SJU fans and we traveled to many away games , including trips to DC , Boston Providence , blacksburg Va and College park Maryland . We also traveled down to philly to see us play Villanova and St. Joes. it was the years that Sonny Dove was on the team and one of the guys ( Bill Davidson ) often let a pigeon loose during the games and we would yell ' the Dove flies high " . Well we traveled down to philly for this game against St Joes and davidson brought a dead pigeon and and a live pigeon with him . As we were going through the turnstile at the Palestra , the bag with the dead pigeon fell to the ground and davidson casually pushed it ahead with his foot and picked it up inside the gate . we went to our seats and waited for the opportune time . When a time out was called davidson got up and threw the dead pigeon on the court and we all yelled out " The hawk is dead " and then he let the live pigeon loose and as it flew over the court we yelled " but the dove flies high " Those were great times and solidified my love for St. Johns basketball .
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Also went down for games in Philly. Remember the pigeon deal, went to one triple-header at the Palestra and we were playing Temple. One guy somehow got down to courside, snuck up on the owl grabbbed his head piece and ran and threw it up into our section just before the cops tackled him and hauled him off to jail. Another time was on a bus trip to Philly and the driver got lost. Somebody got the cord you pulled to signal a stop, fashioned a noose out of it and dangled it in front of the driver, we got to the game on time. :lol: Didn't we also do the pigeon thing for MSG games as well?

Never went to A St. Joe's away game but I remember the nickname for their gym was the BO Barn, place seated maybe 3,600 with low ceilings and the students were really noisy. Back then they always had top teams and I don't think we won many road games there.
 
Good memories Mat105. I was part of the Bill Davidson crowd along with Joe Arena, Brian Dougherty and others. The way I remember the St Joes game was that Bill Davidson found a dead seagull and we spray painted it brown so it had some semblance to a hawk. My favorite memory of that time was the trip to Syracuse by bus in a snow storm. No one thought we were coming so they sold our tickets. When we got there they made us sit on the dirt track surrounding the court at the old Manley Field house. We were down mid way through the second half when we started the Dove flies high chant and let the pigeon go . Sonny went nuts and totally dominated the game the rest of the way. The Cuse fans kept bringing the bird back to us and whenever it was needed we let it go again. Great times not to mention the trip to Blacksburgh VA in the station wagon you rented.
 
Dan , I wasnt on the trip to Syracuse but I vividly remember the trip to blacksburg . We picked up a fellow in Poor Richards pub who wanted to come , i think his name was Pat . All the way down Davidson and his crew kept yelling "who is he " I was a bit older than you guys so I was old enough to rent the wagon . i think we were able to visit with the team at their motel and i think sonny came out to talk to us .
 
The pigeon stories will long live on St. John's lore.

One of the first games I attended on campus during my freshman year was against St. Joe's in '65. As I recall they were ranked number 2 or 3 in the country and the place was jumpin' when we took them down.


St. Joes and the other Philly schools had good programs back then. I always thought the Big 5 was a great idea and that NY would have done well to adopt a similar unofficial league -- We played several NY teams regularly back then (Fordham, St. Francis and Manhattan from time to time) and I don't think it would have been too much of a strain on our schedule.


Am I correct that St. Joe's "stole" the rights to "SJU" from us?
 
Great stories guys! This Bill Davidson seems like one cool fan. Think me and him would have got along.
 
Davidson was a college hoops fanatic and in my opinion one of the greatest SJU fans of all time along with Herbie . Davidson would stay up at night listening to ACC games and report on them when we met the next day in the St> Johns Hall lounge. Anyone out there remember Herbie ? I think his last name was Mapes .
 
Am I correct that St. Joe's "stole" the rights to "SJU" from us?
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I think what happened was the St. Joe's registered the domain name SJU.edu before St. John's did. With web traffic so much a part of university marketing, I think St. John's rather than continuing to promote SJU, and subsequently drive traffic to St. Joe's website, decided to rebrand as STJ as a logo. Amazingly, while out website is stjohns.edu, the domain stj.edu is unregistered and does not redirect to St. John's website, which is stjohns.edu
 
I think it was a trademark that was not renewed by SJU in time and st> Joes jumped on that opportunity to get SJU .
 
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