Professors, students and those who dress regularly in suits of purple come to cheer on the Pilots
By Kyle Cape-Lindelin
It's easier to be a fan of University of Portland Pilots men's basketball nowadays, the team currently in third place in the WCC with a winning record of 14-7 after having long lapses of losing seasons in the past. But for some fans, Pilot basketball is and has been their life, even through the harshest times.
Whether they're students, faculty members or alumni who never gave up their love for the Pilots, hardcore Pilot fans come in all ages.
Recently student fans have upped their intensity to go along with the men's successful season. Juniors Peter VanDomelen and Nick Moran wanted to do something more original with the creation of "the purple-suit guys."
VanDomelen came from the Portland area already used to watching an occasional Pilot game, but got hooked when he became a student and started going to games full time. VanDomelen and Moran decided on doing something different than the body paint employed by Pilot soccer fans.
"We watched an 'Always Sunny in Philadelphia' episode where one of the main characters wore a green body suit. So we Googled it and saw they were available in purple too," VanDomelen said.
VanDomelen gets inspiration to go the extra mile being a fan because "there are a lot of different players to root for and someone new steps up every night, we don't have a superstar but we have a team."
Recalling what his all-time favorite game was, VanDomelen replied "definitely the Oregon game this year, where T.J. Campbell dunked at the end of the game, real in your face moment against our rivals in front of a packed house and lots of Oregon fans."
Students aren't just the only ones who are super fans. There are some true fans in the faculty as well. Sociology professor Robert Duff first came to UP in 1972 after graduating from University of Notre Dame and immediately became friends with then head coach Jack Avina.
This laid the foundation for Duff's fandom and he became hooked when the heralded recruiting class of 1976 arrived.
The class included legendary Pilot stars Darwin Cook, Jose Slaughter and current star Nik Raivio's dad Luke Raivio.
The class reached its peak when they knocked off a top-five ranked Oregon State team in 1978 and beat the power house University of San Francisco on a half-court shot in 1979. These games are ones Duff remembers fondly.
"They were the reason I really became a fan and fell in love with the Pilots," Duff said.
Duff credits the Pilots most recent success with the influence of head coach, Eric Reveno.
"Coach Reveno has done a great job recruiting hard-working, disciplined kids and getting the most out of them to compete at a high level, despite not bringing in the heralded recruits or athletes like Gonzaga, for instance," Duff said.
Duff also got more closely involved with the team instead of just being a fan.
In 1994, he joined the Head Athletic Committee, which oversaw the hiring of coaches, where he stayed until 1998.
He was rehired again in 2000 and stayed until 2005. Duff was also the Faculty Representative for the NCAA and the Institutional Representative for the WCC through the years 1995-2007.
Nowadays, Duff is just a fan,
"They put out talented, smart, good kids with great integrity who also happen to be great basketball players," he said.
Some student fans loved their Pilots so much that they continue to support them after college, which is the case for '95 graduate Ryan Reilly.
Looking back, Reilly remembers "going to all home games from the start and falling in love with the emotional, hard-working, blue-collar play from Pilot basketball."
Reilly's favorite Pilot basketball memory was beating hated rival Gonzaga University in 1996, which earned the Pilots a trip to the WCC tournament.
Reilly wanted to start a positive place on the Web where fans could talk basketball and other Pilot sports related topics.
Reilly and other friends started pilotnation.net in April 2007, an online forum for fans to voice their questions and discuss with other fans.
Originally, the site was run through oregonlive.com but was "unmonitored and not very big at the time, so not many people were interested," Reilly said.
Since then, Pilotnation.net has become a dependable place for good info while also being marketed and controlled for fans.
It has really taken off, particularly from the soccer fans. The soccer forum alone has more web views than many professional teams' websites, which shows how committed our fans are to their sports," Reilly said.
Some fans are so dedicated that they stay connected with Pilot basketball through their jobs like Assistant Director for Media Relations Joe Kuffner. Kuffner had been going to Pilots men's basketball games since a young age, and his whole family were also Pilots fans.
His love for the Pilots continued when he was a freshman at UP in 2002. Kuffner went to all Pilots home games with friends in the front row back in the "dark ages" of losing seasons.
Kuffner and his core group of fans originally started the "Woosh Pilots" chant now popular at all Pilots basketball games. In 2005 he and his friends began "Purple Pride," where they sold T-shirts to fans as a way to "pay for beer night."
"Purple Pride" got students more involved and has since turned into a school sponsored club for students and fans.
Kuffner believes the best player to come out of UP was Pooh Jeter.
"All-time, he was in my opinion the best player to come out of UP and he was just a great guy who was everyone's friend," he said.
His favorite player nowadays is lead point-guard T.J. Campbell.
"(He's a) program changer and is the reason why we're having such a great season and the reason we will have other great seasons in the future because he has raised us to that level," Kuffner said.
All these fans agree that this winning season is a great change of pace compared to being ecstatic about simply winning a game as was the case in past years.
