A good story from 2014 about some of the better fights (fans included).
By Kevin Sherrington Dallas Morning News
6:15 PM on Feb 15, 2014
If the sight of an Oklahoma State player shoving a Texas Tech fan makes you wonder what has come of college basketball in this state, consider that a visiting player once left a Lubbock game in handcuffs. And that wasn’t even the worst case of Southwest Conference basketball manners.
The low point was 1969. A riot erupted in a game at College Station after a Baylor player who had intentionally fouled an Aggie was slugged by a Texas A&M football player.
Also in ’69, the start of a Texas Tech-A&M game was delayed 12 minutes after Lubbock fans littered the court with ice and turkey eggs.
And that was just one week of hoops.
The same season, angry fans surrounded officials after a Rice-Baylor game in Houston, a brief skirmish broke out between players and fans at an SMU-Yale game in Dallas and a Tech player chasing a loose ball at Moody Coliseum was punched by a fan who called it retaliation. The Tech player started it, the fan said, when he elbowed a coed.
A history of violence in the SWC finally reached a tipping point in ’69, when officials made changes suggested by coaches. Didn’t help. The league’s lawless reputation roared right into the ’70s and didn’t recede for a decade.
“The SWC,” News columnist John Anders wrote in 1974, “is possibly one of the worst places in the world to play basketball.”
Anders’ judgment came after a game in Waco in which fans encircled, cussed and shoved officials.
For sheer bedlam, though, nothing beat a Baylor game in February ’69 at G. Rollie White. A Baylor player, Tom Friedman, piggybacked Ronnie Peret as the Aggie went in for a layup. A&M’s Billy Bob Barnett, who went on to build the world’s biggest honky-tonk in Fort Worth, responded by decking Friedman. An Aggie fan then rabbit-punched Baylor’s David Sibley as he ran to Friedman’s aid, and the melee was on.
Films of the fight — studied, frame by frame, by both schools — showed Aggie football player Billy Hobbs in the middle of the fracas throwing three punches. Gene Stallings, A&M’s football coach and athletic director, suggested Hobbs was simply exercising his arm. “Also,” Stallings said, “I think Friedman’s head may have been at the other end from where Hobbs was swinging.”
From that point forward, Aggie football players were told to stand watch at basketball games, not participate in them.
Anywhere they played SWC basketball, though, a fight was liable to break out.
TCU’s Evans Royal and the Raiders’ Jerry Turner rolled off the Lubbock floor in 1970, requiring a campus cop to pry them apart. When Royal turned on the cop, too, he got handcuffs. The SWC got the black eye.
From the Sports Illustrated Vault
Some of the wildest scenes this side of the O.K. Corral erupted in the Southwest Conference. One incident began when Ron Peret of Texas A&M, going in for a layup, was fouled from behind by Tom Friedman of Baylor. An Aggie teammate decked Friedman with an elbow to the jaw, and then Aggie fans hurried out of the stands to get in a few swings themselves. Preventing an out-and-out riot were the Aggie band, which brought the stands to attention with the national anthem, and the A&M players, who formed a protective circle around Friedman. As it was, Friedman wound up with a bruised back, shoulder and head, plus five stitches in his lip. The first-place Aggies, incidentally, won 86-74 and took a two-game lead over the Bears. At Texas Tech, fans littered the court with debris before the contest with the Aggies. Then, after the Red Raiders had lost 71-70, when a last-second basket was nullified by a traveling violation, the Tech rooters showered the floor again.
By Kevin Sherrington Dallas Morning News
6:15 PM on Feb 15, 2014
If the sight of an Oklahoma State player shoving a Texas Tech fan makes you wonder what has come of college basketball in this state, consider that a visiting player once left a Lubbock game in handcuffs. And that wasn’t even the worst case of Southwest Conference basketball manners.
The low point was 1969. A riot erupted in a game at College Station after a Baylor player who had intentionally fouled an Aggie was slugged by a Texas A&M football player.
Also in ’69, the start of a Texas Tech-A&M game was delayed 12 minutes after Lubbock fans littered the court with ice and turkey eggs.
And that was just one week of hoops.
The same season, angry fans surrounded officials after a Rice-Baylor game in Houston, a brief skirmish broke out between players and fans at an SMU-Yale game in Dallas and a Tech player chasing a loose ball at Moody Coliseum was punched by a fan who called it retaliation. The Tech player started it, the fan said, when he elbowed a coed.
A history of violence in the SWC finally reached a tipping point in ’69, when officials made changes suggested by coaches. Didn’t help. The league’s lawless reputation roared right into the ’70s and didn’t recede for a decade.
“The SWC,” News columnist John Anders wrote in 1974, “is possibly one of the worst places in the world to play basketball.”
Anders’ judgment came after a game in Waco in which fans encircled, cussed and shoved officials.
For sheer bedlam, though, nothing beat a Baylor game in February ’69 at G. Rollie White. A Baylor player, Tom Friedman, piggybacked Ronnie Peret as the Aggie went in for a layup. A&M’s Billy Bob Barnett, who went on to build the world’s biggest honky-tonk in Fort Worth, responded by decking Friedman. An Aggie fan then rabbit-punched Baylor’s David Sibley as he ran to Friedman’s aid, and the melee was on.
Films of the fight — studied, frame by frame, by both schools — showed Aggie football player Billy Hobbs in the middle of the fracas throwing three punches. Gene Stallings, A&M’s football coach and athletic director, suggested Hobbs was simply exercising his arm. “Also,” Stallings said, “I think Friedman’s head may have been at the other end from where Hobbs was swinging.”
From that point forward, Aggie football players were told to stand watch at basketball games, not participate in them.
Anywhere they played SWC basketball, though, a fight was liable to break out.
TCU’s Evans Royal and the Raiders’ Jerry Turner rolled off the Lubbock floor in 1970, requiring a campus cop to pry them apart. When Royal turned on the cop, too, he got handcuffs. The SWC got the black eye.
From the Sports Illustrated Vault
Some of the wildest scenes this side of the O.K. Corral erupted in the Southwest Conference. One incident began when Ron Peret of Texas A&M, going in for a layup, was fouled from behind by Tom Friedman of Baylor. An Aggie teammate decked Friedman with an elbow to the jaw, and then Aggie fans hurried out of the stands to get in a few swings themselves. Preventing an out-and-out riot were the Aggie band, which brought the stands to attention with the national anthem, and the A&M players, who formed a protective circle around Friedman. As it was, Friedman wound up with a bruised back, shoulder and head, plus five stitches in his lip. The first-place Aggies, incidentally, won 86-74 and took a two-game lead over the Bears. At Texas Tech, fans littered the court with debris before the contest with the Aggies. Then, after the Red Raiders had lost 71-70, when a last-second basket was nullified by a traveling violation, the Tech rooters showered the floor again.
