Brandeis Fans Love the Game

There's never been so much excitement in Shapiro Gym. Brandeis fans with ram's horns, Arab headgear, and trumpets, yelled themselves hoarse and loved it, even though Harvard mashed their basketball team by 25 points.

It was just like high school all over again. And not just the way the teams played. There were seven blonde and lip-sticked cheerleaders scraming, "Dave, Dave, he's our man, if he can't do it Barry can..."

They were short skirts and blue and white polka dot panties, and everyone was delighted when they turned a few cartwheels. One of the girls told me, "You know, at this school it's been a bad thing being a cheerleader. It's not something you tell people about. You get dumped on. But now, well lookit..."

And she pointed to three hulking boys, one with a skimmer on and an other with a shriner's hat. One of them, Al Sheinbaum, planned all the fun. "This is the pit," he said, gesturing in back of him. There were loads of girls. Someone was beating a big drum in time to an Indian war dance and everyone had some sort of crazy hat on. "We're going to bring the pit to cheer at tiddly-winks matches," he said.

Just before the game 500 blood thirsty Brandeis fans had a huge peprally -- the first in history. They burned a Harvard player in effigy. The coach gave a speech, and then they all moved to the Gym in a cavalcade. Remember when you used to do that?

And this was Brandeis.

At least that was certain. The president of the University, Abraham Sachar, was sitting just behind the team, cheering along with the rest of the standing-room crowd.

And K.C. Jones of the Celtics -- next year's Brandeis coach -- put in a brief appearance at the end of the game. With a few seconds to go in the slaughter, the trumpeter played taps, and K. C. grinned. He said the Judges were "a good ball club, but they made a few mistakes."

And the crowd just filed out, giggly and perfumed. Next year they'd have K.C. himself and maybe something more to cheer about. If they could cheer anymore.