Go Eagles
As Butler [University] fans, we had to agree that the contingent from American University won first place for fan support at the NCAA tourney in Birmingham over the past weekend. We were amazed at the noise generated by the small crowd and think your fans deserve to be noted for that. We did try to support your win only to see you get upset by Tennessee. Good luck in the future and keep up the great team support. It is a pleasure to see.
Larry Blankenship
Evansville, Indiana
Don’t Forget the Boss
Joan Albert Most’s nostalgic account (letter to the editor, winter 2008) of Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street band’s historic appearance at AU in the early seventies is entertaining but inaccurate.
Springsteen did indeed perform in Leonard gym with the band the week before Thanksgiving in November 1974. Not 1973, as Most wrote. I should know as I was at this show, and there were all kinds of problems with the equipment that needed to be sorted out before the first note was played. The two albums mentioned, Greetings from Asbury Park and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle were already released at the time of the Leonard gym show. While the show was well attended Springsteen’s following was limited mostly to New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Cleveland at that time.
The following spring with the release of Born To Run the band took on a more substantial following playing larger venues and with the (now famous) concurrent Springsteen Time and Newsweek cover stories.
There is one other interesting note about that November night so long ago. After the show, Springsteen was invited to head across Massachusetts Avenue to partake in some on-campus partying with AU students. He graciously accepted.
Jeffrey Lynn Coplan
SPA/BA ’78
