In 29 years as the “Voice of the Shockers” on radio and many more as a Wichita State graduate and lifelong Shocker fan, I have had many special “Shocker moments” in my 61 years. I can remember my first Shocker football and basketball games with my dad, and I was in the stands as a high school student to see Dave Stallworth score 40 points in his final college game.
Professionally, I have had the thrill of describing WSU capturing the National Championship in the ’89 College
World Series, the back-to-back wins over Iowa and KU in the 1981 NCAA Basketball Tournament, the run to the Sweet 16 in 2006, the 1982 football victory over KU and a couple of very special recent volleyball seasons, just
to name a few.
Outside of sports, my years as a WSU student produced some very different, but certainly important and life-defining moments, as the entire campus community came together to try to make sense of the deaths of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the students at Kent State and of course the terrible tragedy of the plane crash involving the WSU football team.
There were also the lighter and happier special moments, such as hearing Peter, Paul and Mary, and Simon and Garfunkel in concert at the roundhouse. What I am finding more and more as I grow older, however, is that it is not any one of these events or moments, by themselves, which keep them such special memories for me, but rather the people with whom I shared those experiences.
When I think of the basketball game with Iowa in 1981, my first memory is not of any single play, but of the wall
of noise in the arena and of hugging my sidekick, Dave Dahl, so hard that we almost tipped our chairs over. The importance of the people with whom we share our Shocker experiences, and other moments of course, has been reinforced by my increased involvement with the WSU Alumni Association since my wife, Debbie, became
the executive director.
Just in the past couple of years, I have been in attendance at events that were part of reunions for the football teams of 1963 and 1978, for a group of African-American students who attended WSU between 1964 and 1974, and then this past spring, a reunion of former Shocker football players, spanning a period of over 40 years. What was immediately apparent at these events was the sheer joy of rekindling relationships that were so important in those people’s lives during their college days, even if those relationships have been dormant, in terms of regular contact, for many years. The stories flowed freely, usually starting with “Do you remember when we (fill in the blanks),” followed by uproarious laughter and then “What were we thinking?” or “I hadn’t thought about that in (20/30/40) years!”
This coming February, we will all have the opportunity to participate in one of those types of events, rekindle special memories and create new “Shocker moments” when the alumni association brings back homecoming, an event not celebrated at WSU since 1990, four years after football was dropped. Yes, I understand there is still no football at WSU, but the football game was really just a focal point that allowed homecoming attendees to come together in a common expression of their loyalty and enthusiasm for their university. The new homecoming will center around a men’s basketball game. Is there any greater rallying point for our Shocker Nation than Shocker Hoops?
I have been very gratified to hear the overwhelmingly positive response toward the homecoming idea by current WSU students, and I want to urge all WSU alums and friends of the university to jump on board as well.
There is an opportunity here to not only bring back such homecoming traditions as the nightshirt parade, the election of a king and queen, and maybe even those big, yellow mums with the black pipecleaner “W,” but also to blend them with ideas from today’s students to create a great new tradition that will provide many more “Shocker moments” for years and years to come.
Don’t miss this opportunity to again experience what makes Wichita State University, and our relationships with
her and one another, so special.
