Here is a comment I wrote in response to a thread that is no longer here.
This will be a little long and, for that I apologize.
It's not that he's run out of schools. It's that many Evillainova fans take particular pleasure in taunting Temple. Andrew Kennedy (ncaaball with its various numbers, the Owl will never Die, jhg722. - with period, et al) takes great pleasure in making sure that we Temple fans can't come over here and have a nice conversation about basketball.
FTR, The Hawk Will never Die is St. Joe's phrase. Always has been, always will be. Temple doesn't use it. Never has. Never will. Easy way to spot an imposter.
There was a time when a lot of us rooted for all five of the Philly schools (Temple, St Joe, LaSalle, Penn and Nova) when they weren't playing our school. There was (and in many cases still is) a special bond among the schools -- going back to the time when a lot of the guys played against each other in high school and in the summer leagues. The coaches do Coaches vs. Cancer events together.
For me, that ended in 2004 when John Chaney did Nova a favor by scheduling a game at midnight the first day possible, so that Jay Wright could suspend the guys who were using illegal phone cards for a game against Division III Longwood (en route to Nova playing at the Chaminade tourney in Hawaii).
Fans on both sides were rowdy -- and Nova was winning, which was not unexpected. Some spoiled brat from the Main Line decided to throw a beer bottle at the head of Temple guard David Hawkins. As he was bringing the ball up the court.
From that point on, Nova was dead to me. I was no longer one of those fans.
Yeah, yeah ... officials stopped the game, the kid was thrown out, Jay Wright (who IS a pretty classy guy -- and I, for one, do NOT believe the rumors that he knocked up a soccer player) got on the speaker and scolded the Nova fans.
The fact is, since Villanova won the national championship in 1985, Temple has been to the tournament more times AND has reached the second weekend more times. You can look it up.
Oh, and as far as the neighborhood. Yes, Temple is distinctly urban. And, yes, when I went there 40 years ago, you couldn't go past certain streets.
That has been changing over the years. And now, real estate prices in the neighborhood have gone up 128% in the last eight years. Professors and young graduates are buying houses and living in the neighborhood. Businesses are moving up Broad Street and there are world-class restaurants and mom-and-pop barbeque places on the same block.
Neighborhoods to the east and west of Temple have become vibrant centers for the arts and that is moving toward Temple.Temple itself was just named to the top tier of the Carnegie classifications - where it joins fine universities such as Iowa.
Temple isn't for everyone -- if you want to go to a manicured lawn insulated bubble (where kids sell LSD out of the dorm), yeah, Nova is probably your meat. If you want to be in the middle of city that was just named a World Heritage Site and a top place to visit by Lonely Planet. Where you can have world-class museums (and get in free on certain days of the week), a city that is rebounding, then, yeah, Temple is probably the better place. A place where you can make your own mark -- then Temple is for you.
Again, I apologize for the length -- I was really looking forward to talking about Uthoff and asking about Uhl. I have friends who went to Penn with Fran McCaffrey and I used to live in DC near folks who worked for Senator Harkin, and Congressmen Nagle and Nussle. I wanted to talk Iowa butterfly chops.
But, with Andrew Kennedy hijacking every thread, a lot of the fun is gone. And it's not the fault of any of you Iowa fans.
