WuShock and WSU’s cheer squad, the Shocker Sound basketball band and large, raucous contingents of Wichita State students and alumni – including travelers on alumni association-hosted chartered planes filled to the seat with Shocker fans – followed their favorite team to five NCAA Tournament games over 16 days and three time zones.
And the rest of an ever-expanding Shocker Nation “cheered angry” from just about every locale on Earth.
Bass-baritone Alan Held ’83, for instance, was in Tokyo for performances of Die Meistersinger. He watched as many of WSU’s games in Utah, California and Georgia as he could, despite the time difference between the states and Japan.
On March 25, he posted this message on his blog: “As always, this is a great time of year for a basketball fan, especially a basketball fan who has just seen his favorite college team and alma mater make it to the Sweet 16.The Wichita State Shockers shocked a lot of people with their wins over the University of Pittsburgh and Gonzaga. I wasn’t all that surprised.”
WSU President John Bardo, who, along with his wife, Deborah ’75/77, traveled in support of the Shockers as they advanced ever deeper through tournament competition, says the jump in number of clipping-service articles about WSU was exponential.
“From the time we beat Pitt until two days after the Final Four, we got some 20,000 online clippings about WSU, roughly 1,500 a day,” he says. They came from all over the world: “From as far away as Tajikistan and Columbia,” he adds.
Before the run to the Final Four, Bardo would receive from 10 to 60 clippings a day. “It was great fun,” he says about the games: in Salt Lake City, WSU vs. Pittsburgh, 73-55, March 21 and WSU vs. No. 1 Gonzaga, 76-70, March 23; in Los Angeles, WSU vs. La Salle, 72-58, March 28 and WSU vs. Ohio State, 70-66, March 30; and in the Final Four in Atlanta, Wichita State vs. Louisville, 68-72, April 6.
“Beyond the joy and excitement,” Bardo notes, “getting to the Final Four provides you with two major things. First, it gives you national name recognition. For years to come, Wichita State will be mentioned along with the other mid-majors to make the Final Four. It keeps you in the public eye. Second, the experience was a community-building one. People from all over became Shockers. I was told about KU and K-State fans in a Topeka sports bar, all cheering for the Shockers. I heard from a WSU alum about a sports bar in Bangkok, where they all watched a Shocker game. In Salt Lake City, a bus driver ‘adopted’ the team. In LA, there were people leaving the arena singing ‘You don’t want to go to war with the Shockers.’ There were so many little moments like those. They are really special.”
Before the Shockers stepped onto the Georgia Dome court to go up against the Louisville Cardinals in the national championship semifinal game, the WSU Alumni Association, with sponsorship assistance from the WSU President’s Office and from Koch Industries and its subsidiary Georgia Pacific, hosted some 5,000 Shocker fans at the biggest pre-game rally in its 100-year history.
“The atmosphere was electric,” says Debbie Kennedy ’94, president and CEO of the alumni association. “It was, without question, one of the very finest moments since I have been with the association – to see such unbelievable Shocker pride on display.”
