Quoted!

I made the paper today!

A coworker had emailed first thing this morning about a 'nice quote' in the paper. There was a quote by me in an article in today's Indy Star about Butler's "New Found Fame". The reporter caught me buying shirts for Eric and I in the Butler Spririt Shop at Hinkle Fieldhouse - he happened to come in and ask if there were any non-Butler students/alumni buying stuff, and there I was. He didn't even use some of my best comments, which were about the Hinkle Fieldhouse Experience.

In case the above link is taken down, here's the article - it's a good article, regardless. My quote is in "Butler Blue".

Butler's newfound fame: Everyone's a fan now
Overshadowed no longer, Bulldogs come into their own
By Tom Spalding
Posted: March 31, 2010

They have become America's team. The darlings of the dance. The team you're supposed to pull for -- if you're not from Duke or West Virginia or Michigan State.

But just as the nation discovers and embraces Butler University, in some ways, so, too, does Indiana.

Truth is, in a state known for its hoops hysteria -- the Milan Miracle-inspired "Hoosiers," Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, John Wooden, Gene Keady and Purdue, and Bob Knight and the championship banners at Indiana University -- many basketball fans here know Butler as that nice, little team that plays in that quaint fieldhouse, somewhere over there in the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood.

Always the Bulldogs. Never the Big Dogs.

Until now.

"It's a great Cinderella story," said Kara Cwalina, 33, Indianapolis who graduated from Auburn University. "I've watched the team progress. To be able to see that local team do well, that's cool. Even though it's not my school."

It's not Jeff Friar's school, either. Yet there he was Monday afternoon among those crammed into Butler's small shotgun-shaped souvenir shop inside Hinkle Fieldhouse, snapping up T-shirts for his wife and two children.

"First Butler items I've ever bought," said Friar, 45, who lives on the Southside. "Just getting involved in the hype."

Friar played for Indiana University's football team in the late 1980s and was in the crowd when the Hoosiers won the 1987 basketball championship. The 6-foot-8 lineman is still a diehard IU fan.

But the Bulldogs' storyline is simply irresistible.

"Just a great program now," he said. "To me they are Indiana kids working hard, and you've got to support the Indiana brand."

In Indiana, though, the most popular brands remain IU and Purdue. They have the Big Ten crowds -- and the Big Ten television contracts and exposure. They have the huge alumni following. They have the tradition.

Butler spokesman Marc Allan said the school, which has an undergrad enrollment of 3,899, has 42,000 alums, with 17,000 of them in Central Indiana. That compares with 51,982 Purdue alums in Marion and the surrounding counties. Indiana University has more than 265,000 graduates who live in Indiana, with 102,000 of them in Marion and surrounding counties.

Even in a down year, IU drew more than 15,000 fans per home game this season.

Butler, though, is gaining ground -- not because of some Cinderella run, but because the school has built a legitimate Top-25 program.This year, 33 of the Bulldogs' 36 games were on television, including ESPN. And average attendance at Hinkle Fieldhouse was 6,852 -- the best in 39 years but well short of its 10,000-seat capacity.