La Salle T-shirts disappear as campus swoons over team
The Olney campus has fallen for its first Sweet Sixteen team since the 1950s.
The first batch of Explorers Basketball Sweet Sixteen shirts were hung up on racks at the La Salle campus store at about noon Tuesday. They were gone in less than half an hour.
"I have a bigger family," laughed LaSalle University Associate Nursing Professor Denise Pruskowski-Kavanagh, clutching close to a dozen dark blue graphic T's under her arm. "There's six children; two are graduate students and two are alums."
Boasting seven shirts, Kate Ward-Gaus, a university drug and alcohol educator, carried an index card with names and sizes.
"They're flying off the shelves," she said. "I got calls from friends, family and alums. They all wanted them."
A small crowd gathered in the two early birds' wake, tipped off by a Facebook notice about the sale. Many of them were greeted with bare metal hangers instead of T-shirts commemorating that school's first trip to the Sweet Sixteen since the 1950s.
The team clinched a spot in the tournament with their third win in less than a week Sunday, beating Ole Miss 76-74. Already, the Olney boys are in Los Angeles ahead of their Thursday West Regional semifinals game against Wichita State at the Staples Center.
Back at campus, admitted fair-weather fans are hard to come by. Many say they saw this day coming all along.
Sophomore Aiyana Pellegrino, 19, calls herself a lifelong fan. The petite nursing major snagged one of the last shirts at the store Tuesday - a double extra-large - noting she didn't mind cutting it down to size herself.
"You're not just a bunch of people anymore," she said, recalling the way students streamed into the night air following Sunday's win and clambered up telephone poles at 20th and Olney Streets to cheer the Explorers. "You're one school, one team, like one person."
Christina Mariani, 21, endured three losing years as a loyal Explorers watch-party attendee.
"It's been really great as a senior to get this 150th anniversary gift for the school," said the South Philly native. "It's been amazing to see the change in spirit."
LaSalle goes on Easter break Friday, but Facebook groups have sprung up encouraging students to stay and cheer. For many, it's a no-brainer.
Shawn Haak, 18, said he anticipates more than half of the students will stick around. The freshman admits he wasn't exactly a fan when he first came to LaSalle from New York last fall.
"I didn't even know about LaSalle basketball," he said. "You hear about Philly basketball schools like Temple and St. Joe's."
After storming the court following a February win and joining the throngs of fans in the streets Sunday night, Haak is ready to stay put and bleed blue and gold.
"The Sweet Sixteen is great, but if we get to the Elite Eight?" he asked himself. "People will go nuts."