St. John’s Markets To Hispanics

Before Felipe Lopez brought his spindly legs to St. John’s, Alumni Hall resembled a noisy tennis audience. While Lopez has yet to bring the Red Storm its traditional NCAA Tournament berth, the 6-6 shooting guard from he Dominican Republic has contributed something else: multiculturalism.

No statistics are kept on the ethnicity of fans who attend St. John’s home basketball games. But things inexorably changed late one autumn night in 1995, when Midnight Madness (the frenzied event in which college fans usher in the basketball season) became Felipe Madness.

“It was like a carnival atmosphere,” said assistant coach Ron Rutledge, who joined St. John’s in 1978. “It was festive. From the Hispanic community, there were fans that came with the cow bells and congos.”

Baseball is the Dominican Republic’s sport of choice, but Lopez literally opened the door to basketball for many Hispanics at St. John’s. “We knew in recruiting Felipe that wherever he decided to go to school,” Rutledge said, “there was going to be great support from the Hispanic community.”

Lopez, who moved from the town of Santiago in 1989 when he was 14, had plenty of supporters at Rice High, where he became the nation’s premier schoolboy prospect. Yet the number of supporters increased dramatically at Alumni Hall, which perennially sells out its 6,008 seats.