Why is Hilton losing it's Magic.

[cyclonenum1]

I will agree that Johnny knew how to fill an arena. However, I think the magic lasted a little longer than 1990. We had a 39 game winning streak that ended in the 01-02 season.

Yeah, we had a great team in that stretch but the attendance was between 10,000 and 12,000 during that time. With the exception of the first three years, Orr's era had crowds between 12,000 and 14,000 every year. The one year that we had one of our best teams (85-86), average attendance was 14,024 (which happened to be the max at Hilton back then)! Just having a team that wins does not equal magic.

 

[acgclone]

It's very simple.........When the Clones start fielding a team that can beat anyone on their home court, Hilton Magic will be back. The fans will cheer louder and harder once again.

 

[isuno1fan]

Cyclone Alley has many positives, but when the students were scattered all throughout Hilton it forced the whole crowd to get involved. Now that the students are only on the ends, fans are tending to sit more and leave early for the parking lot.

Bingo...we have a winner...nail on the head!!

 

[joepublic]

We lost too much at Hilton. That's why Hilton Magic is gone. It's probably gone forever.

1. The Big 12 came into existence = better competition and better coaching for opposing teams equates to more home losses.
2. Coaching turnover. Not healthy for the program. This may be fixable with McD.
3. Player retention issues. The turnover has been horrible. Running players was policy under Floyd and Eustachy, and it doesn't do much for fan connection to the players when new faces arrive each year. That may be fixable under Greg, or at least improvable. But I think player turnover is here to stay.
4. Ticket prices.
5. Student support is nowhere near as good as it was in the 80s.

 

[EggMcClone]

It's the same thing that happened at every other school and in many other sports around the world. I don't think it's something specific to ISU.

Many younger and passionate older fans have been priced out and there are many, many different entertainment options fighting for those dollars. It used to be ISU basketball was pretty much the only thing going on in the winter but now there's a lot of other stuff for people to do. Fortunately ISU's tickets are a bargain compared to a lot of places.

All of that said, I know that the "old people" at ISU can be louder than anyone else's "old people" and with a consistantly good team we will see a lot more sellouts. Even with the average to bad teams of the past few years we're still near the top of attendance in the Big 12 and holding our own nationally and it will get better.

 

[thakeepa14]

*shaking the head*
Hilton magic hasn't (and never will) leave....period. You guys have no idea how good we have it. Just go support Colorado or an Alford coached team for awhile. Our great fans are the reason it gets loud when we're not so great, and deafeningly loud when we're competing for the title. Sure you can get picky as it's not quite at the level it needs to be in times of hardship, but even in our down years opposing teams know heading to Ames is going to be a loud night....Never forget how good we have it!!!

 

[CTTB78]

If you look at what non -ISU fans think Hilton Magic is-- it's beating top 10 teams in Ames when we might be only a top 30 team. We had a chance with Kansas this year, but the magic just fell short. When we return to those days, people outside of Ames can and will start talking about Hilton Magic again.

 

[chicagoCy]

*shaking the head*
Hilton magic hasn't (and never will) leave....period. You guys have no idea how good we have it. Just go support Colorado or an Alford coached team for awhile. Our great fans are the reason it gets loud when we're not so great, and deafeningly loud when we're competing for the title. Sure you can get picky as it's not quite at the level it needs to be in times of hardship, but even in our down years opposing teams know heading to Ames is going to be a loud night....Never forget how good we have it!!!

I remember beating a very good Missouri team in the 80's after coming home with a 7 game losing streak. Hilton was on fire that night before "Here's Johnny" even played. On the post game Johnny gave all the credit to the fans. "Man Pete, there's no place in the country where you can come home with a 7 game losing streak and have the fans get behind your team like this!" I don't know what the solution is. I hope we can get some continuity with McD. Maybe it's because we can't play the Hamm's theme song anymore.

 

[chadm]

Maybe it's because we can't play the Hamm's theme song anymore.

Best I could find.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc7HoWEk6y8]YouTube - Hamms Beer Bear[/ame]

 

[cyclonekj]

Your mom is losing her magic.



Hilton Magic is a chemistry between the team and the fans. Both groups have suffered from the recent discontinuity in the program. It will get better. Everybody down from the ledge.

 

[brownie]

Many great points and I see it from the big picture. Bring stability in the coach and players - fewer 2 yr. players.Hopefully this has been taken care of with McD and will only improve. The students are back down low where they should be, now make sure it's affordable and mix a few seats in groups around the arena to keep that youthful exuberance flowing through the whole arena.There isn't a bad seat in Hilton, only some with a lesser view! Find an entrance theme like Johnny had, to pump up the adrenaline. And improve the halftime back to shoot five-for-five levels. That always seemed to keep everyone pumped for the start of the 2nd half. The Hamm's beer jingle always helped - a simple tune with a stand-up-and-clap-like-this effect. Always got almost everyone up and moving. It seems like a lot of little things to get the big thing going and keep it there. Hilton's still close, lets tweak it and return to the @ss-kickin' ways like we had before! :yes4lo: :biggrin9gp: :wink0st:

 

[jbhtexas]

Maybe it's because we can't play the Hamm's theme song anymore.

Why can't that song be played anymore? Does it offend some minority? Does it violate some kind of hate speech law? Does it offend the bear species somehow?

 

[dvmted]

Why can't that song be played anymore? Does it offend some minority? Does it violate some kind of hate speech law? Does it offend the bear species somehow?

I don't know what year it was, but it was deemed to be offensive to Native Americans. No one really knew what the connection was then, either. It is not a Native American song. There were no Native Americans in the commercials, and I'm pretty sure the bear wasn't a Native American. I guess it just sounded Native American. I think they went with my way of handling it. If it offends you that much, I'll refrain from doing it as a common courtesy. Common courtesy seems to have been lost in most areas of society today, sadly. But I won't get on my diatribe about that. I must say, they did a good job picking out a song to substitute that was pretty close to the original and remains to this day. Funny that they didn't rename Squaw Creek, even after it flooded Hilton.

 

[CyBobby]

I said it before and I'll say it again..."LOSING BREEDS APATHY"!!


It's as simple as that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[cyclonenum1]

*shaking the head*
Hilton magic hasn't (and never will) leave....period. You guys have no idea how good we have it. Just go support Colorado or an Alford coached team for awhile. Our great fans are the reason it gets loud when we're not so great, and deafeningly loud when we're competing for the title. Sure you can get picky as it's not quite at the level it needs to be in times of hardship, but even in our down years opposing teams know heading to Ames is going to be a loud night....Never forget how good we have it!!!

I concur with chicagoCy on his post...it's called "front-running" or "jumping on the band wagon" when your team is competing for the conference championship and you decide to really support the team.

It was magical back in the 80s when we knew we would probably be .500 or a little better in the Big 8 but we packed the arena and were deafening loud anyway because we didn't want anybody to come into our house and beat us. We did our part and the players responded! We didn't wait for them to do something to get us revved up.

By the way, the intensity started early...everyone was in their seat to see Johnny come out and it did not take much for him to work the crowd into a frenzy as he pumped his fists to The Tonight Show theme song! Unfortunately, my sense is that many posters on this site never experienced what it was like when Johnny came out (especially when we were playing a highly ranked team like, say, KU).

 

[cyclonekj]

I concur with chicagoCy on his post...it's called "front-running" or "jumping on the band wagon" when your team is competing for the conference championship and you decide to really support the team.

It was magical back in the 80s when we knew we would probably be .500 or a little better in the Big 8 but we packed the arena and were deafening loud anyway because we didn't want anybody to come into our house and beat us. We did our part and the players responded! We didn't wait for them to do something to get us revved up.

By the way, the intensity started early...everyone was in their seat to see Johnny come out and it did not take much for him to work the crowd into a frenzy as he pumped his fists to The Tonight Show theme song! Unfortunately, my sense is that many posters on this site never experienced what it was like when Johnny came out (especially when we were playing a highly ranked team like, say, KU).

Good point! Johnny always got the crowd going with his grand entrance and any time he got on the officials or stood up and gave them that glare. Johnny Orr's charisma and the way the team, band, and fans fed off it were huge parts of the Magic.

 

[SilverCyclone]

".... The Hamm's beer jingle always helped - a simple tune with a stand-up-and-clap-like-this effect. Always got almost everyone up and moving. It seems like a lot of little things to get the big thing going and keep it there. Hilton's still close, lets tweak it and return to the @ss-kickin' ways like we had before! "
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.... Yeehhh ... "Land Of Sky Blue Water"... I'm the biggest advocate of Hilton Magic(*circa 82*)... BUT, this is pretty much why I want to take a big,fat,hairy,stinky dump at mid-court... I don't need any PC Police to tell me what I can cheer for anymore... hhhmnmm... DID I MENTION THE BIG,FAT,HAIRY DUMP AT MID-COURT... funny how something "silly as that can **** a person off enough not to donate money to the BB program or athletic dept. ...:baffled5wh:

 

[Ficklone02]

I have never seen Johnny Orr coach a game. Since I grew up in NW Iowa I didn't really even know ISU athletics existed until I saw Fred Hoiberg playing against Kentucky(? I think) in the 2nd round of the NCAA tourney one year on TV, but I know I get chills down my spine when he enters for a guest appearance in Hilton and the announcer says here's Johnny.

I can only imagine what it was like when he was in full force.