A History Lesson: The Albany-Siena Rivalry in the 1970s... when "thumping" wasn't metaphoric

On February 14, 1972, the Schenectady Gazette ran this headline "Albany State Five Hands Indians 72-56 Thumping." If Siena "Saints" was substituted for "Indians" and "UAlbany" for "Albany State," this headline would not be out of place in a contemporary paper (though I am sure Saint's fans would protest the reality of the score discrepancy). The context behind "thumping," however, is worlds away from the landscape of the current rivalry.

In 2001, cross-town rivals Siena College and Albany University renewed their basketball series. iIt was the first time the teams had met in 24 years. Over 10,000 spectators, a number that was thousands above the season average, came to the then-Pepsi Arena in downtown Albany, where Siena plays its home game. In the decade that followed, attendance continued to spike for the yearly matchup, but despite this popularity, the rivalry retains only a shade of the intensity that existed during the seventies before the series was broken off in 1976.

No single contest better exemplifies the rivalry during the seventies than the 1972 "thumping." Far from a metaphorical sports cliché, the headline alluded to a brawl in the stands between the opposing fans that cut the game short.

According to the Gazette article, the campus said the brawl was "triggered by some Siena students, who went after a banner in the State cheering section and, following a delay of about five minutes, the officials called a halt to the main event."

An Albany alumnus who was a student at the time provided a more colorful perspective to the event. The "banner" was a tradition of an Albany State fraternity with the letter EEP, the Potter Club.

"They used to have a sign, I say a sign but I mean a spray-painted bed sheet, at the most opportune time they would always unfurl it: 'EEP says Siena Sucks,'" he said. "All the Albany students, even the ones that hated their fraternity, would rally behind it."

That year, one of the people holding the sign was Rudy Vido, a football player who later achieved local celebrity by being invited to tryout for NFL teams. He was "a massive guy, generally know to be the biggest, meanest, strongest guy there was," he said.

When Albany State hit a shot that assured that Siena could not come back, the Potter Club unfurled the sign. All of a sudden "these little skinny kids started flying up the aisles and all of a sudden all hell broke loose. The potter guys were just throwing guys over the side rail, and these kids were just flying off. The fighting took up probably half of one side of the stands."

While it was never confirmed, our Albany alumnus always assumed that the Siena fans hopelessly attempting to steal the banner from Vido "were Siena fraternity pledges and had been given the task ahead of time."

It would be of little surprise if the fight was sparked by fraternal order because the hostility between the schools was engrained into the cultures of each campus during the seventies.

"I learned pretty early in my freshman year that you had to hate them," he said of Siena. "Part of the experience of being a UAlbany student was that you absolutely had to hate them."

A former Siena alumnus at the time believes that part of the rivalry stemmed to the difference between the urban and suburban school.

Siena, "being a Catholic institution and mostly Caucasian, would be chided for being church-going dorks," the Siena fan said. "UAlbany, with many more African-Americans and a large number of Long Island/NYC students--many of whom were Jewish--were hit with bad stereotypes."

Another serious contributor to the basketball rivalry was simply lack of competition. Basketball, the Albany alumnus said, was the "only sport that anyone paid any attention to. There was always a buzz, 'Are we going to beat Siena this year?'"

The seventies was a decade that saw Siena College make an ambitious leap for a small Roman Catholic school in 1975 to Division I basketball. Still, the distinction between the two schools during the seventies was not so great. In fact, Albany State as the university was referred to then actually had a 6-5 series lead during that time period. That series record is slightly misleading. The Great Danes started out the decade with a four game winning streak, but then the scores slowly began to shift in favor of Siena. Coaches, fans and players could no longer rattle off specific statistic or finals scores of these games, but remnants of the animosity between the two schools in the seventies still lingers.

For the most part, the games were played as part of a home and home series, and the tiny, intimate gyms served to amplify the aggression. Entrance to these far smaller venues was usually restricted to students and faculty. A fan who was not willing to endure long lines risked not making it into the packed arena.

"My freshman year I was told I had to get there to the gym [for the Siena game] before even the JV game started," our Albany alumnus said. "I remember thinking that that was kind of crazy because the games were never sold out. You never had problems getting a seat. So I got there not quite at the start of the JV game, within a few minutes, and I remember I got one of the last seats there was... There was nothing else that came close to rivaling it. People would line up hours early to make sure they got in."

Other influences helped increased the frenzy between the fans -- and these turf wars did not disappear outside of cramped gyms.

"Eighteen was the drinking age then, so many, or most, of the students would be drunk at game time, " recalled our Siena insider. "After the games we won, Siena students would stagger into SUNY Albany bars, Sutter's and the Bitter End come to mind, and get into fights (not me, of course). SUNY Albany students would seek us out at a place called Muddy's on Route 9, and later at Dapper's down the hill on Spring St."

Those on the Siena side, however, tended to downplay the rivalry during the seventies, especially those involved in the latter half. In Siena's dominant years during the transition to Division I, they could award scholarships. One of Siena’s star players during this time was two-sport athlete Gary Holle, now in the school's Hall of Fame. Holle scored over 20 points a game during his two years at Siena and was described by Rene LeRoux, who has authored a book on Siena basketball, as the best athlete Siena has ever had.

Holle remembered playing in the local round robin with Albany State, Union and RPI [Editor's Note: the fourth team was incorrectly listed as St. Rose]. To lose to Union and RPI, who both still have basketball programs below Division I, would have been "embarrassing," Holle said.

"But Albany would give us a good fight," Holle said. "Though most of the time we came out on the winning end."

Bill Kirsch, Siena coach and athletic director at the time, similarly did not have any vibrant memories of the rivalry. They were always contested games, but he apologized for being unable to talk about any specific games. Kirsch even went as far to say that Albany was not a main rival for Siena and mentioned that current league members, Niagara and Manhattan, were bigger rivals.

Kirsch and then-Albany coach Doc Sauers both claimed that their relationship was one of friendly rivals. But the tension between these two coaches seemed to drive the rivalry.

"It was well known that [Sauers] and Kirsch hated each other," our Albany alumnus remembered. "Back then, Doc seriously hated them, and he imparted that onto his players."

The careers of the two coaches is deeply intertwined. Doc Sauers said he interviewed for the Siena job out of curiosity before Kirsch was named head coach. Sauers said he was offered the job and "when I turned it down, he got the job."

When Siena-Albany State series broke off after 1976, the rivalry was still simmering.

Doc Sauers said that he was asked in 1976 to "pose for a picture [with Coach Kirsch because] this was the last game. I said, I'll sit with Coach Kirsch, but I'm not going to pose for any picture because I don't think the series has ended. Because we're still as good as they are, whether they're Division I or not."

Sauers said, "They say they stopped the series because all the vulgarity and signs posted on the walls." He said it seemed that the series actually ended because of sentiment on the Siena side that they had nothing to gain from playing a lower division team.

Our Siena alumnus agreed. "Kirsch found ways to back out of the games since UAlbany was still a Division III team," he said.

While Kirsch remembered few specifics from the games in the 1970s, Sauers, who won 702 games in a career, still remembers that final match up with Siena as "easily among the best, most satisfying." Sauers recalled the two technical fouls assessed to Siena for dunking before the game and even the keep away offensive strategy he used during the game. Sauers said he even has the champagne bottle from after that game, a 66-58 Albany State victory.

While the games are still hard fought and the fans bicker back and forth, these recollections depict a total war fought between the schools in the 1970's. It is safe to say, no current or future student at Albany or Siena will ever witness a victory celebration akin to what our Albany alumnus saw in 1976.

"I actually remember seeing Doc in Sutters at 3 o'clock that morning. He still had the net around his neck."