Thirty years ago, when Cal State Fullerton last shot its way into the NCAA tournament, and NBC announcers Dick Enberg and Al McGuire spoke so glowingly on television about our 57 Freeway exit-ramp of a school, I was doing what most sophomores were doing on campus:
Trying to find a parking spot.
The Titans basketball team that season enjoyed more success between the lines than my banana-yellow Mazda did.
March madness?
Parking, that was madness.
I'd like to say I camped in a tent three days in advance to get tickets to basketball games, and hawked T-shirts drenched in Orange (Bobby) Dye, and organized a "Disco Night" to fund my road trip to the NCAA tournament to see the Titans shock New Mexico and then the University of San Francisco before coming up three stinking points short against Arkansas in the West Regional final.
Not true.
There were hard-core zealots, some legitimate Titan Gym court kooks, Bill Harvey to name one, and one colleague who made the 1978 pilgrimage to the West finals by driving a Pinto hatchback from Costa Mesa to Albuquerque.
But that wasn't the Fullerton experience for everyone.
Some of us lived at home, took a full load of classes and worked four days a week in Los Angeles. We didn't attend Fullerton because of its basketball -- we went there because it was cheap!
Tuition at Titan Tech worked out roughly to the cost of a Northwestern sweat shirt.
Fullerton was a fine institution, one you were proud to have attended, but the only thing it lacked as a commuter school was a drive-through window.
Would you like fries with that degree?
I don't recall an oak tree in the quad to gather around, or Friday night pep rallies, or singing the alma mater by a bonfire, or wanting to pledge a fraternity.
It wasn't Cal State Kumbaya.
Yet, the success of the 1977-78 basketball team was psychologically important and it remains personally inspiring.
That rag-tag Titans squad reflected its mid-major class status. The players overachieved despite being underfunded -- just like the rest of us.
The center, Steve Shaw, was a 6-foot-8 junior college transfer who had no business trying to guard USF's 7-footer, Bill Cartwright.
Shooting ace Kevin Heenan unfolded out to 6-4 and 150 pounds and wore welder's goggles to protect his eyes. He looked like Buddy Hol- ly.
"Typical nerd," Heenan once said of himself, "and putting on the goggles only made it worse."
