Saluki Sports...
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[It's easy to be critical, but so much more enjoyable to be complimentary. And that's first up this week after enjoying last weekend's perfectly executed 25th reunion of SIU's 1983 national football championship team.
Athletic director Mario Moccia's staff pulled it off without a hitch and visiting Northern Iowa cooperated as well by fumbling four times, once at SIU's 1-yard line, and again deep in Saluki territory allowing coach Dale Lennon's crew to pull out an unexpected 27-24 victory with a last-second field goal.
The win was simply icing on the reunion cake for more than 30 players who returned to campus, many of them for the first time since departing in the mid-1980s.
Perhaps the most frequently single word we heard was "unbelievable." And, it wasn't while describing the game which produced several somewhat unusual stats, but in enjoying the festivities surrounding the get-together.
Friday night's invitation-only reception in the SIU Arena was a perfect kickoff to Saturday's pre-game tail-gating operation.
Terry Taylor, the most celebrated member of the 1983 club as he played 151 games with four different clubs in the NFL, said, "this is simply unbelievable" while surverying the hundreds and hundreds of fans participating in the noisy pre-game activities which take place between the Arena and McAndrew Stadium every game day.
It's true. Members of SIU's 1983 team had never witnessed anything even close to the partying atmosphere that is so dominant now. Sure, there were more than a dozen or so grills loaded with goodies in previous years, but SIU's social leaders have truly developed that scene in recent years and deserve praise.
Taylor wasn't the only returning player expressing surprise in the pre-game happenings. Rick Johnson, the QB of the championship team who traveled all the way from California to celebrate the occasion, simply shook his head in disbelief. So, too, did the team's leading scorer, kicking specialist Ron Miller who scored 110 points.
That's one thing the '83 Salukis were extremely good at - scoring points. Only once during their 14-game season did they fail to reach double digits (a 28-6 loss to Wichita State) and on only one other occasion did they fail to score three touchdowns or more while winning 13 times.
Not only were the players impressed with the reunion, but head coach Rey Dempsey, too, was appreciative. He addressed the group for almost 50 minutes at the Friday night affair and backed that up with an equally-long phone call with us this week.
"I've been very fortunate in my life," Dempsey said, "in that I've enjoyed every job I've had - every coaching position and in my ministry. The years I spent at SIU, however, were the most enjoyable as far as coaching was concerned. We worked with so many good people there that I'll never forget them. I'll never forget the athletic directors, Gale Sayers and Lew Hartzog. That doesn't mean that they gave me everything I asked for or felt that I needed to be successful, but they were honest and fair with me."
And, obviously he also had kind words to say about Moccia, SIU's present sports boss. Last weekend's event was just another example of his professional expertise in supervising staff members.