Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Road Trippin' Wildcat Style

During my spring break, my wife and I decided it would be fun to take our daughter on a road trip to Phoenix, Arizona to visit my brother and his family. On the way there we stopped in Flagstaff, home of the Big Sky's Northern Arizona Lumberjacks.

While staying in Phoenix we learned that the Wildcats were going to be playing in San Diego, a 5-hour drive away.  So we decided to make that an excuse to visit my other brother who lives on the military base there. We bought tickets to the NIT game and got to watch SDSU beat our team pretty bad. But we still had lots of fun anyway.  

Check out some of the pics of the game below:

Pictures of my family road trip

On our way to Phoenix to visit my brother and his family, we took a little break from nine hours of driving to visit NAU's bookstore in Flagstaff. I bought a hat and a shirt on clearance and took a pic by this cool trailer.

Coach Rahe after the game was awesome. He came out and met with us fans, thanked us for all our support, and took about 50 pictures with us. I was lucky enough to be in this picture. I'm standing between my two favorite people: my wife and Coach Rahe!

The Cox Arena holds about the same amount of fans as the Dee, but the way it is built makes it very loud. The concession stands are outside too. It's a pretty cool venue.
When I took this picture, these girls could barely contain themselves. They were so excited to be taking a picture with the dreamy Steve Panos.
We had great seats. 4th row right behind the Wildcat bench.


Sunday, March 15, 2009

WSU has the best team and the best fans




This basketball season has been awesome so far. I've really enjoyed the resurgence of the student section and the Purple Pack. Thanks to you all for making the games that much more enjoyable. And a big thanks to Bev and Dave for their roles in it all.

Friday, March 6, 2009

March is Madness for the Big Sky Too

Sometimes as Weber State fans we are so focused on what our University does to make our sports experiences better. We are always concerned with what marketing is doing, what our Sports Information Director is up to, and what the overall university support in our teams is. Often we get so caught up with our school and its efforts that we forget about those from the Big Sky Conference who work so hard to ensure that we are enjoying a quality product, whether it be on Big Sky TV, the Altitude, or in person at conference tournaments. If ever a fan wants to do a little research on Big Sky Conference sports and teams, I would highly recommend checking out the Big Sky’s website, their blog, or their new Twitter page. The Big Sky provides tons of news, information, and updates.
Because I believe the Big Sky is so important to our Weber State basketball experience as fans, I thought it would be interesting to do a short interview with Jon Kasper to find out exactly what he and the conference do behind the scenes and what they are doing to prepare for the Big Sky Championship tournaments.
I found his responses to my questions very informative and enlightening. I think you will too.

Wildcat Wall: What is your job title for the Big Sky?

Jon Kasper: First off Mark, thanks for your interest. I’m always happy to answer questions from our fans. Most people don’t understand what exactly we do here, or don’t know that our offices are located on Historic 25th Street in beautiful Ogden.
My job title is Assistant Commissioner for Media Relations

WW: How long have you worked for the Big Sky?

JK: I started at the Big Sky in September in 2004, so I’ve been here about 4 ½ years.

WW: What are some of your general duties in your job?

JK: We have a small staff, so we are all involved in a lot of different things. My main responsibilities are overseeing the media relations department, which includes myself, Autumn Wehr and our intern Tanner Gooch. I’m the main contact for football, men’s basketball and women’s golf, and oversee the other sports, which Autumn and Tanner handle. Our duties include selecting Players of the Week, publishing weekly notes, updating the content on www.bigskyconf.com, www.bigskytv.org, as well as our blog. (www.bigskyconference.blogspot.com, and our new Twitter page. We’ve produced some video highlight packages this year. We also administer the All-Conference selections, handle the certificates that student-athletes and coaches receive. We have working relationships with all of the sports information directors in our league, and work with media who cover the Big Sky. I also help work with television networks that cover our league. I also oversee the golf championship, and assist at other championship events. It honestly seems like there is something new and different every week.

WW: Do you get to go to many of the men's basketball games around the conference?
JK: Because of the economy, I haven’t traveled much this year. We are very cognizant of money at all times in the Big Sky. I try to attend all of Weber State’s home conference games so I can see each team in person once. I’ve also attended one game at Idaho State and one Montana non-conference game while I was in Missoula for a playoff football game. I get the sports package on Dish Network, so I try to either watch or tape all of the basketball games featuring Big Sky teams. I also spend a lot of hours watching our teams on Big Sky TV.

WW: This year has been a very exciting season for Big Sky men's hoops. What are your thoughts on how it all played out, and what are your thoughts on how Weber State did?

JK: I guess I’m a little bit surprised at the success of Weber State, but who knew Damian Lillard was going to emerge like he has, and players such as Nick Hansen, Kyle Bullinger and Kellen McCoy were going to perform as they have. I think Randy is a terrific coach and always has his teams well-prepared and ready to play. With all of the talent Portland State has and especially after the upset of nationally-ranked Gonzaga, I think a lot of people felt like the Vikings were the team to beat. The Vikings are a very dangerous team, and I wouldn’t be at all surprise to see them win the championship next week. Yeah, I know Weber fans don’t want to hear that. The emergence of Anthony Johnson has been vital to Montana’s success. I was surprised to see Idaho State struggle like it did, especially early in conference play on offense. Idaho State played a brutal non-conference schedule, but I thought with the talent the Bengals had they would win a couple more of those games. Idaho State has found its groove at the right time, and could surprise a lot of people. I know that’s another thing Weber fans don’t want to hear, but I really think Idaho State is a talented club, and a tough matchup because of its overall size. It’s good to see Northern Colorado continue to improve and make it to the tournament for the first time. The Bears are another dangerous team playing well right now. Montana State isn’t playing very well right now, but let’s not forget that the Bobcats are the only team to beat Weber State and earlier in the season MSU won road games at Oregon State and Colorado.

WW: The quarterfinals are tomorrow and the rest of the Big Sky Championship will be on the 10th and the 11th in Ogden. Do things get more hectic around the office when the Big Sky playoffs begin?

JK: They don’t call this time of the year “March Madness” just because of the games on the court. This is very busy time of year. I haven’t slept much in the last couple of weeks. I spend a lot of time the last week of the men’s and women’s season trying to figure out the scenarios. All the teams want to know what they have to do to get in the tournament, get a certain seed, secure a home game, and host the championship. I was up until 4 a.m. one night working on men’s scenarios. Today started at 7:30 a.m. with a conference call. Commissioner Fullerton and I spoke with a member of the NCAA Committee who is responsible for overseeing our conference. We do our best to present information to the committee throughout the year to help our teams gain respectable seeds. We do all of the credentials for the tournaments, and that’s what I’ve been working on most of the morning. I’ve also been in contact with Altitude and ESPN, working with them to make sure they have everything they need. Saturday morning I’ll fly up to Missoula for the quarterfinal game featuring Montana and Montana State. Before that, I’ll watch the Montana-Portland State women’s game that will determine who hosts the women’s tournament. After the games, I’ll write up stories on both quarterfinal games, update the brackets, and begin working on the championship release. Sunday morning I’ll fly back to Ogden, finish up my release, and start doing the last-minute checks. One nice thing about having the tournament in Ogden is I get to sleep in my own bed and don’t have to travel on Monday.

Normally, I spend Monday traveling to the men’s site, and then go right from there to our women’s tournament on Thursday morning. At least I get a few more days at home this year. Our Associate Commissioner Ron Loghry oversees the championships, so he is very busy working with Weber State and potential women’s hosts. There is a lot of planning that goes into the championships. Teams have to select hotels, banners need to be made, and officials need to be selected and their travel has to be arranged. We want the championships to be a great experience for the student-athletes, coaches, administrators and fans.

WW: It looks like this will be a very competetive tournament. Any predictions on who will win?

JK: I’ve learned not to make predictions in this job. We’ve got nine schools and we love them all the same. It irritates me when fans think we favor one school over another. I see that all the time on the message boards. Believe me; if we favored one school over the other we wouldn’t have our jobs long. We want to see all of our student-athletes, coaches and universities succeed. When it’s a non-conference game, we’re always rooting for our teams. If it’s a playoff game – like the Weber State/Cal Poly football game – we were all ecstatic that the Wildcats won. At the same time it was disappointing because we knew that since Montana and Weber State were playing the next week, one of our teams would have to lose.

OK, I’ll bend a little bit. I think all of the four teams who advance here to Ogden have a chance to win the championship. (Now that’s going out on a limb.)

There is no doubt Weber State has the advantage of playing on its home court in front of the Purple Pak. Weber seems so focused. Weber had nothing to play for Tuesday against Montana State, but went and played like the No. 1 seed was on the line. If Portland State hits its 3-point shots the Vikings will be really, really tough to beat. If Montana’s outside shooters are hitting to help Anthony Johnson they are tough to beat, especially because the Grizzlies are playing so well on defense. Idaho State and Northern Colorado are also playing very good basketball right now.


WW: I know you are a UM guy, but your wife is a Weber girl. Who is your family pulling for during the tournament?

JK: It’s weird how the world works. My family is originally from North Dakota, and we moved to Montana when I was 14. I attended Montana and ended up living there for 10 years, working at the Missoulian as a sportswriter, where I learned to be very objective. I wouldn’t be in this position today if the conference didn’t think I could be objective. My mom, dad, brother and sister all moved to Ogden in 1996, so now we’re all back in the same city. My brother took many of his classes at Weber State, but his degree is from Utah State. My sister is a freshman at Weber State. My wife Mackenzie is close to getting her degree from Weber State. My father-in-law Bob Hunter is a Weber State alum and an adjunct professor. My father-in-law actually helped design the old “Go W” logo back when he was a student. I have a lot of purple in my family now, and most of them are probably rooting for Weber State. Some of them don’t care at all that there is a tournament coming up. Mackenzie takes a lot of photos for us, and does graphic design for us. Like me, she respects all of the teams in our conference. She’s developed friendships with many of the people in our league. I think she’s neutral, but I can’t control her. I know she knows a lot of you crazy Mountain Dew-guzzling Purple Pak guys from high school. She and our beagle Annie are excited the tournament is in Ogden so I will be home and not on the road. What I’m pulling for is the community of Ogden, the students of Weber State, and other sports fans throughout Utah to come out, support Weber State and support our tournament. I believe winning sports programs can really bring a community together and create civic pride. Tuesday and Wednesday night are a chance to forget about the problems of the world for a few hours and come out and support some great collegiate student-athletes. I know they would all love to play in front of 12,000 fans on Tuesday and Wednesday night.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Wildcats have rich history


I am a huge fan of Weber State basketball. I hold season tickets, I often attend the coach’s luncheon at Ligori’s and I write a blog for a fans website. It really bothers me when I tell someone how my number one hobby is Weber State basketball and they give me a funny look or make a snide comment like, ‘Weber State? Don’t you mean Harrison High?’ I just don’t get it. I’ve attended most of the home games this year and have been disappointed to see it filled over half-capacity only three times. I think most residents of the greater Ogden area just aren’t aware of what they have up on the hill. Maybe they are not aware of the history and success of Weber State basketball.

In the last 10 year the ‘Cats have gone to the NCAA tournament three times. In 1999 they stunned the nation by upsetting third seeded University of North Carolina. I’m pretty sure that is more appearances and wins in the tournament than other division 1 programs in Utah.

On March 10-11, because the ‘Cats became Big Sky champions, Weber State will host the Big Sky Championship where the winner will receive an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. The Dee Events Center holds 11,666 people. Let’s get the community excited about our amazing basketball program and get them to come to the game and fill the Dee to capacity.

I am proud to say I live in Ogden, home of the Weber State Wildcats. I hope the community is too. And I hope we can all show up to the tournament and help our team make it to the NCAA tournament for the second time in three years.