Personal Experience With MU Basketball Player

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

Shared a class with Pop Sims and Herb Harrison. Pop had a real personality...good sense of humor. Solid guy. Herb was very cool. Friendly. Extremely laid back (I guess it was all the weed). Also shared a COMM class with Kenny Rice. Not exactly Harvard material. Would see Joe Nethen a lot at Johnston Hall. I'm sure he was a nice guy, but damn, he scared the hell out of me. Intimidating look. Also, was always wearing shorts...even in the middle of winter.

Nethen was the guy there was a whole thread of stories dedicates to correct?

[JWags85]

Visiting my best friend from HS at Marquette, we ended up party hopping with Ryan Amoroso.  He was largely unremarkable, not a douche, but your typical cocky athlete.  Humorously, he did talk about poker alot.  What made the night memorable was that he was with Ooze.  What a character.  Constantly smiling and laughing, made out with 4-5 girls throughout the night.  After one such encounter with a less than comely female, Amoroso gave him some grief about the girl and Ooze tells him "How many girls you make out with tonite? ZERO!" And loudly cackled before waltzing away.  He was the best.  We had to stop multiple times walking places cause he'd wandered off to talk to someone new.  Id imagine every student at that time has a great Ooze story.

[77ncaachamps]

Zack McCall was seen at more of the parties I went to. Wouldn't act stuck up or hard but he wasn't free talking to just anybody either.

Aaron was cool dude on the streets walking to class. He would say whassup if you said wassup first.

[77ncaachamps]

Maymond

Is that Jeronne as Hank's lovechild?!

[dgies9156]

Ulice Payne!

Class act then. Class act now.

[Ellisium]

Zack McCall was seen at more of the parties I went to. Wouldn't act stuck up or hard but he wasn't free talking to just anybody either.

Aaron was cool dude on the streets walking to class. He would say whassup if you said wassup first.

Zack McCall !!!   TURBO !!!  - He had one of the best nicknames of all time @ MU.  It's a shame he was suspended for ganja. 

[🏀]

Chris Grimm was also awesome.

[warriorchick]

He's not near a computer right now, but jsglow has already shared the
story on Scoop of how Doc Rivers served him a cream puff while playing 2 on 2 so that the vertically and athletically challenged guy could block it and piss off Marc Marotta.

[Dr. Blackheart]

Rick played at Marquette.  As complex as he was generous.

[Gato78]

I was at MU from 74 to 78. Not like it is now. Players hung out with everyone else--except the Black guys would hang at the Multi-Cultural Center sometimes. They were "the players" but guys like The Pope and Bo and Butch and Rosenberger and J Whitehead and UP and Neary were totally normal (except Pope), fun guys. Not like the regimented, different lives the players lead today.Boylan was the foosball king. Most hung out at The Gym bar. I played in the Gym Bar summer softball league run by Bingo. George Thompson could play short and 3rd at the same time and had a gun for an arm. Over the years, the players have all been pretty accessible with only a few exceptions.

[JustinLewisFanClubPres]

The year after he graduated from MU I got the opportunity to run about 4-5 games of pick up ball at Helfaer with Dwight Buycks. I've played with a handful of MU guys in similar situations and Buycks was by a far the most humble and best. He had his share of highlight reel plays (obviously) but really went out of his way to get everyone involved in regardless of skill level. It made for a great afternoon of ball and left a lasting impression. Always rooting for him to get another shot at the NBA.

I know some people had mixed feelings about his time at MU but based on my limited interaction with him, he is a hard guy not to like.

Also, I know some friends who had some great encounters with Lazar at the campus bars (including one where Lazar let my friend take a picture of him being boxed out by my friend). It's a great photo.

[77ncaachamps]

The year after he graduated from MU I got the opportunity to run about 4-5 games of pick up ball at Helfaer with Dwight Buycks. I've played with a handful of MU guys in similar situations and Buycks was by a far the most humble and . He had his share of highlight reel plays (obviously) but really went out of his way to get everyone involved in regardless of skill level. It made for a great afternoon of ball and left a lasting impression. Always rooting for him to get another shot at the NBA.

I know some people had mixed feelings about his time at MU but based on my limited interaction with him, he is a hard guy not to like.

Also, I know some friends who had some great encounters with Lazar at the campus bars (including one where Lazar let my friend take a picture of him being boxed out by my friend). It's a great photo.

In fact, the opposite is quite true.

When I see him play now in the pros, I regret not appreciating even more what he brought to the table at MU.

[rocket11]

About 2 years ago my wife was at a conference where Ulice Payne was the main speaker.  Afterword, she went up and told him that I was a huge MU fan and asked if she could get his autograph for me.  He said to her "We can do better than that, write down your address."

A few weeks later I got a hand written, full page letter from him thanking me for my support of MU basketball.

It's in a frame on my wall.  Ulice rocks!

[CAINMUTINY]

Ousmane (ooze), Wes and Novak.  Ooze stands out since I met him the summer he came to MU and we jammed out to some fela kuti.  Always stopped to say what's up and generally a super nice dude. 

[4everwarriors]

Ah dude, seems to me UP wanted to hit on yo lady, hey?

[rocket11]

UP hitting my lady is just another affirmation that I out-kicked my coverage.  

[Avenue Commons]

I knew Anthony Pieper and Chris Crawford as we were the same year. Always cool, hung out at Murphy's and parties a few times. Pieper got a bad wrap from some people, but I always found him to be like most other guys I knew just better known and more talented. Bumped into Crawford when he was on the Hawks. Made random chit chat about MU and how he was doing. Good dudes in my experience.

[dgies9156]

I was at MU from 74 to 78. Not like it is now. Players hung out with everyone else--except the Black guys would hang at the Multi-Cultural Center sometimes. They were "the players" but guys like The Pope and Bo and Butch and Rosenberger and J Whitehead and UP and Neary were totally normal (except Pope), fun guys. Not like the regimented, different lives the players lead today.Boylan was the foosball king. Most hung out at The Gym bar. I played in the Gym Bar summer softball league run by Bingo. George Thompson could play short and 3rd at the same time and had a gun for an arm. Over the years, the players have all been pretty accessible with only a few exceptions.

I was there exactly the same years and the guys were all part of us. That's one of the things that made Marquette special.

We all lived together in McCormick and we all enjoyed them, as I think they did us. Ulice was an incredibly class act, but so was Butch and Bo, and the rest of the team.

[Cooby Snacks]

I used to sit behind Mike Kinsella in Phil 50 so I could use his size to obstruct the professor's view as I took naps.

[Warrior Code]

Visiting my best friend from HS at Marquette, we ended up party hopping with Ryan Amoroso.  He was largely unremarkable, not a douche, but your typical cocky athlete.  Humorously, he did talk about poker alot.  What made the night memorable was that he was with Ooze.  What a character.  Constantly smiling and laughing, made out with 4-5 girls throughout the night.  After one such encounter with a less than comely female, Amoroso gave him some grief about the girl and Ooze tells him "How many girls you make out with tonite? ZERO!" And loudly cackled before waltzing away.  He was the best.  We had to stop multiple times walking places cause he'd wandered off to talk to someone new.  Id imagine every student at that time has a great Ooze story.

I wonder if his screen name is still BigChips2008.

[MauraDay]

Saint Patrick's Day 1999 somehow ended up drinking in the old gym locker room with Jarrod Lovette & friends.
Hit a 3 on him (playing fake defense) when we stopped to shoot around on our way there. Nice guy.

[SuddenSam]

Novak, very open and nice chat and pic at Verizon Center after we beat Miami but before Syracuse manhandling, so who wouldn't be happy anyways.

[warriorfred]

Damon Key was at a party and I was a bit over-served so I decided to post him up, and call "ball, ball."  I think think his exact words were "Whisky Tango Foxtrot."  I explained that I used to play forward in junior high, so I wanted to see what it would be like at the college level.  He shook his head and laughed, and we hung-out for a bit.  Really nice guy.

I was also able to guard Tony Smith for about 15 seconds in a pick-up game at the rec center.  He dribbled a bit and passed the ball, but didn't score, so I can say I shut down a NBA player.  He could have torched anyone on the court at any time, but was playing for fun or to stay in shape. After the game I told I'm him something to the effect that "I owned him."  He rolled his eyes and laughed, but was good natured about the kidding.

[GooooMarquette]

When I was a student - Doc Rivers.  It was the beginning of freshman year for both of us and we were walking from the Halfaer Center.  I introduced myself and we had a nice long chat.  He didn't give off the air of a superstar - he was just one Frosh talking to another.

As an alum - Dominic James.  My daughter and I were in the Spirit Store before a game his sophomore year.  It was still several hours until game time, and we noticed him standing alone talking on the phone.  My daughter had been struggling in school (about 6th grade at the time), but I told her she could go to the game if she "did her best" by midterm report cards.  She got straight As.  When Dom was done on the phone, I convinced her to go and introduce herself.  She told him she wanted to go to MU someday, and got to go to the game because she had straight As.  Dom didn't talk about hoops, but instead encouraged her about school, and told her that if she kept doing her best, she'd get into MU.  She turned into a straight A student taking multiple AP courses in high school, and still recalls that day as the turning point in her academic career.

Postscript:  she did get into Marquette with a nice scholarship offer, but ended up going to a different MU (Mizzou) for journalism.  But she is still a Marquette fan through and through.

[sailwi]

Mu 75-79 as as Gato said back then players were very accessible.  Toone and Boylan lived on my floor in McCormick and we would chat all the time when we ran into them.  Boylan was a bartender at the East End (13th & State) for a time, you would never see anything like that today.