17 / 32
GCU MAGAZ I NE • 17
LOPEVILLE
RISING
campus, said he was taken by the GCU spirit as
soon as he saw it during the recruiting process.
“The students here are unbelievable,” he
said. “That’s what I tell everyone back home
and all my friends: ‘You don’t understand until
you come here and you talk to the kids.’
“You see the passion, and not just at
basketball games. At anything. Whether it’s
Chapel or it’s Mr. GCU, all the kids go nuts and
they just love the school. Everyone’s so loving
— that’s one thing that makes it easy to move
over here and live here.”
The cultural exchange ranges from vegemite
sandwiches (“Actually pretty good,” Hunsaker
said) to good old-fashioned kidding. “If you’re
friends with an Aussie, they just rip you apart,”
he said. “That’s, like, friendship. You’ve got to
have thick skin. But they’re the happiest, nicest
people.”
“We bully him a little bit,” Martin admitted.
“He’s smaller than us.”
Along for the ride
The living arrangement has made Hunsaker
appreciate the grind that student-athletes
face daily, and they, in turn, are thankful for
something Hunsaker has that they don’t — a car.
Well, a car more or less. Mostly less.
Hunsaker calls it his “1999 Ford Exploder,”
with a “d.” Hey, it’s transportation when they
want to go out to eat on Sundays.
“This thing makes so many weird noises,
has three doors that don’t open and doesn’t
have a back window,” Hunsaker said. “But they
don’t have any other options.”
Noise is a constant at GCU Arena as well
during basketball games. This season, the
Havocs will loudly greet the two most high-
profile teams ever to visit — Louisville on Dec.
3 and San Diego State on Dec. 7 — and coach
Dan Majerle can’t wait.
Majerle knows all about noisy arenas. He
played in some great ones for the Phoenix
Suns, including Arizona Veterans Memorial
Coliseum, aka the “Madhouse on McDowell.”
“It was one of those old-style buildings where
the acoustics were unbelievable,” he said. “For
an NBA arena, they were right on top of you.
“This is close. Madhouse, I don’t know how
many it sat, maybe 15,000. For 7,200, this gets
just as loud. The student section, obviously,
is more rowdy, more energetic as far as the
hopping around. The stuff they do before the
game, right before we tip off, that always fires
me up. That gets me ready to roll.”
Atmosphere made it clear
It’s also a recruiting tool. Martin knew he had
found the right place the first time he visited.
“That’s a big part of why I came here,” he
said. “Obviously, it was Coach Majerle, too, but
I wanted to play somewhere where it’s a crazy
atmosphere.
“Back home, you see college atmospheres
like Ohio State and Duke on ESPN, and that’s
what I think of when I think about college
basketball. When I came and saw this crowd, I
couldn’t say no.”
It makes it only natural to spread the
post-game love with those handshakes and
high-fives and slapped palms. It has become a
winning tradition.
“To be able to go around and see them
face to face, give them a high-five and thank
them personally is definitely something that’s
unique,” Martin said. “It’s great for us basketball
players to meet the fans and relate with them
because they’re students just like us.”
This is far more than just oral support. This
type of interaction could only happen at a place
like GCU, where the culture brings out the
best in people … and the people bring out the
best in the culture.
DeWayne Russell leads the Lopes
around the Arena as they greet fans
after a game.
photo by darryl webb
Coach DanMajerle says the Havocs’ pregame chants and rituals get him “ready to roll,” and it
has the same effect on the players.
photo by darryl webb