Forging a Real Rivalry

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Our specialty is trash-talking,” says Jeremy Davis. “They’re more like cheerleaders.” Davis, a fourth-year criminal justice major at San Diego State University, is copresident of the Fisher Fanatics. He’s comparing his basketball booster club (named in tribute to coach Steve Fisher) with the student boosters across the valley at the University of San Diego.

“We’re selling out the student section [at Cox Arena],” Davis says. “The first five rows are the crazy guys. We want to be wacky, and we want to be dorky. We have subsections—there are the guys who wear afros and the guys with mullets. We have the Mexican wrestlers. And we have guys who wear giant heads of [people like] Michael Jackson.

“We don’t really have uniformity. Not like USD. They’re more face painters, and they all wear blue. They’ll yell, ‘Go, USD!’ while we yell things like ‘Die, USD!’”

Jeremiah Fillo, a senior biochemistry major, is Davis’ counterpart at USD. “Yes, they’re definitely the trash-talkers,” says Fillo, club president of USD’s Hooligans. “But they say things and don’t seem to care that kids are at the game.” Fillo repeats an SDSU chant that would make half of Camp Pendleton blush. “We do body painting, and we’ll talk some trash, but we try to make it witty. The goal is to outwit them.”

Basketball practices began in mid-October. November kicks off the preseason. The Catholics of USD and the Party Boys of SDSU—Fillo’s labels—meet for the 35th time on December 3 at the Jenny Craig Pavilion. Last year, the Toreros made the 64-team NCAA Tournament for the first time ever. The Aztecs went to the Big Dance the prior season and played in the consolation NIT this past year, winning in the first round of a national postseason tournament for the very first time.

Both programs are on the rise. Interest in a cross-town rivalry has never been higher—faint praise, but praise nonetheless. Could we be at the dawn of San Diego’s college basketball renaissance? It would be a pleasant addition to the gaping sports void that exists here.

“I think we’re on the cusp,” says Tom Ables. An Aztecs loyalist for 58 years—he’s missed just two football games in 50 seasons—Ables is a member of the “Big 64” alumni hoops booster group. “It’s always surprised me how little rivalry there’s been to it over the years. But it’s starting to bloom. The San Diego community comes out for winners.”

ELEVATED INTEREST in the SDSU-USD game has even spurred the teams’ head coaches to consider playing each other twice a season. That’s a far cry from the days when, according to USD coach Brad Holland, former San Diego State coach Fred Trenkle didn’t want to schedule USD because “he was the big local school and we were the little guys, and he had too much to lose by playing us.”

Of late, there had been problems getting the game scheduled. But that was because of conflicts and not because State didn’t want to play the game, says coach Fisher. “Without question, we’ll always have this game on the schedule,” he says. “It’s important to both schools, and it’s important to the city.”

Fisher even offered Holland a home-and-home series this season. Holland says he turned it down because USD has the home game this year. Both coaches say the idea will be broached for next year.

Wouldn’t an annual two-game series be a great idea? It elevates the rivalry to the conference level. Play one in the beginning of the year and the other near the end, after running through conference schedules. If both teams are having winning seasons, the rematch will be twice as good—and acutely anticipated. Even if both clubs are slumping, high hopes for a rubber-match, season-making victory could also fill the stands.

The down side: Playing twice could detract from the novelty of a one-time “showcase” game. And if both teams are bad, the games could be two low-capacity duds. Also, a second game fills a date in Cox Arena, which sells out when nationally ranked teams like Arizona and Texas Tech come to play.

“I’d like for us to experiment for two years with playing a home-and-home series,” says Fisher. “It remains to be seen if it’s a good idea or not. We’ll have to take a close look at it.” Holland concurs.

The school’s athletic directors ought to consider that four of the last five games were decided by 6 points or less—and 14 of the 34 all-time meetings were won by 5 points or less (SDSU leads that series, 18-16).

Recent history also favors adding a home-and-home series. From 1980 to 1999, the game drew an average of 3,446 fans. The neutral Sports Arena was the venue from 1980 to 1992, with the high-water mark of 5,020 coming in 1984.

But the numbers blew off the charts the last three years. Two games drew 8,000-plus at Cox Arena, and one sold out the 5,100-seat Jenny Craig Pavilion.

SO WHAT CAN WE make of this awakening rivalry?

Well, last season’s 78-72 Aztecs victory snapped a four-game Toreros win streak. Fisher’s only been at SDSU four years, so in his mind “It didn’t become a rivalry until we beat them once.”

Adds Fisher: “I don’t know what it was like in the past, but I think USD has felt it has been perceived as second class when in some years the reality was that it has had a better team than San Diego State. I hear that they feel they never get the front page—or any press; that it all goes to the Aztecs. So I think over the years the rivalry has meant a little more to them.”

In his 10 years at USD, Holland, a UCLA grad who also played for the Los Angeles Lakers, is 6-2 versus SDSU. “It gets frustrating for us at times as we try to create a good program and not get as much exposure or notoriety,” says Holland. “That’s not San Diego State’s fault. They have more alumni in town.

“Our rivalry definitely isn’t on the level of UCLA and USC. When I played those games, it was more than just a conference rivalry. But [USD/SDSU] is now selling out. The game is shown on Cox Cable. And we’re definitely no longer just the little school that just sits on a hill and looks out over the ocean.”

One prevailing sentiment is that if USD and SDSU competed in football, the two schools would be local rivals nonpareil. “It would add another dimension and keep things going longer in the year,” says Davis. But basketball is all he’s got to work with. So Davis promises his fellow Fisher Fanatics will be out in full voice December 3.

“We want to be louder than USD,” he says. “We want to turn it into a home game for our guys.”

You can bet the Hooligans will have something witty to say about that.

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