{ TP GAME }
TP TOSS SEEN ‘ROUND THE WORLD JBU Men’s Basketball TP Tradition Attracts the Attention of National and International Sports Outlets For more than 30 years, the JBU Men’s Basketball Toilet Paper (TP) game tradition has been one of the best-kept secrets of college athletic fan traditions. The secret is out. After the first home basket is made, Golden Eagle fans toss thousands of rolls of toilet paper onto the court, earning a technical foul for the mess that everyone quickly helps to clean up. On Nov. 2, 2011,Yahoo! Sports’ front page ran a story about JBU’s TP game. It called the phenomenon “one of the premier traditions in all of college basketball.” Within a few days, the entire sports community was buzzing about JBU’s TP game. 8 |
Brown Bulletin | Winter 2012
Even before the Golden Eagles made their first basket this year, Simeon Hinsey ’02 knew that the Toilet Paper game was going to be a big deal. Hinsey, JBU’s sports information director, had contacted Yahoo! Sports writer Jeff Eisenberg in 2010 asking him to mention JBU’s TP game. Hinsey’s inspiration to contact Yahoo! Sports came when he saw an article written about Taylor University’s Silent Night basketball tradition. “I saw the article on Taylor University and knew that if Taylor was on Yahoo! Sports, then JBU definitely should be too,” Hinsey said. “When I contacted Jeff Eisenberg and sent him a link to our TP game video, he emailed me back
within minutes saying that he would definitely be interested in covering the game in 2011.” But Yahoo! was only the beginning. After Yahoo! Sports ran a story on it’s main webpage about the TP game, other media outlets started talking about the tradition. Sports Illustrated online, The Sporting News, CBS News and dozens of others ran stories about JBU. Rachel Fiet, assistant director of university communications, was notified by ESPN that they planned to use JBU’s video of the event on “Sports Center” and “Around the Horn.” “This was a big deal, and I knew that students would want to be involved,”