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Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - Printable Version

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Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - Spiny_Norman - 04-02-2019

https://gostanford.com/news/2019/4/2/mens-basketball-hall-of-fame.aspx

There are some nice quotes from Lichti in the announcement. This is my favorite.


Quote: "One of the first things I did upon hearing the news was look at the list of players already inducted searching for one name – Hank Luisetti," Lichti added. "He was there and that made it ok for me to be included."


RE: Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - Hank 91 - 04-02-2019

I couldn't be more excited about this. My freshman year was Todd Lichti's junior year, so I was able to watch him up close for two seasons. Some called him Todd the God, and that's certainly what he was to my friends and me. His exploits on the court are well known and recapped nicely in the article Spiny links, but my two strongest memories of him have nothing to do with basketball.

Those from my era will remember that there was a computer lab in Tresidder called LOTS, and below LOTS there was an arcade. My friends and I used to spend a lot of time in that arcade, and we were partial to pinball. Our favorite machine was Jokerz Wild, and right next it was another machine that we universally despised, Pinbot. One night four of us were playing Jokerz, when another kid wearing a brobdingnagian backpack came in for a study break and dropped a quarter into Pinbot. It was Lichti. We all noticed him at the same time, and for the duration of his game, not a word was spoken by anyone. We were elbow to elbow with a legend. When he finished and walked back out, it was like we all breathed for the first time in five minutes. Not one of us had even considered talking to him. How, after all, do you talk to a god? (Incidentally, this episode elevated Pinbot in our minds. It wasn't unusual for one of us to take a spin at it from time to time, always excusing the play by saying, "Well, if it's good enough for Lichti..." as the quarter jingled into the slot.)

A year later, after Lichti had graduated and gone on to the NBA, my friends and I were living in Manzanita. One of the main attractions to Manzanita was that there was a pool table attached to the lounge. (I can't begin to guess how many hours we spent there.) So one afternoon two of my friends burst into our trailer, completely out of breath from what we'd learn had been a sprint from the pool table to our front door. "We just played a game of pool with Todd Lichti and Andrew Vlahov! And Jennifer Azzi was watching!"

When you consider that I still worshiped Lichti, idolized Vlahov, and had a desperate crush on Azzi, this was like sinking three daggers into my heart. I couldn't be excited for my friends; all I could think was that they hadn't deserved an audience with the Holy Trinity of Stanford Basketball -- it should've been me. Even thirty years later, I stand by that statement. It should've been me.

RE: Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - CowboyIndian - 04-02-2019

(04-02-2019, 01:03 PM)Hank 91 Wrote:  It should've been me.

Ray Charles and Commander Cody agree.
It Should Have Been Me

RE: Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - cctop - 04-02-2019

(04-02-2019, 01:03 PM)Hank 91 Wrote:  When you consider that I ... had a desperate crush on Azzi

I'm the same class as Jennifer Azzi.

My father desperately wanted her as a daughter-in-law.  He'd tell me, "She plays basketball, she's Italian, she's cute...what more could you want?"

I was always amused by the order of his priorities.

By my senior year my father was getting desperate: "OK, just get me an egg.  One ovum is all I need!"  (He's an endocrinologist, and he was joking.  Kind of.)


I met her just once, briefly, while standing in line to register for a class.  I considered telling her about my dad but I couldn't think of a way to make it sound funny instead of creepy.

RE: Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - JeffInCorvallis - 04-02-2019

Wait. There eventually was a pinball arcade underneath LOTS?

RE: Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - PVTree - 04-03-2019

I remember the bowling alley and arcade at Tressider. I went to LOTS often enough (thanks CS106A), but never knew there was an arcade below...didn't even know there was a below.

With Lichti, I am happy to have been present at Maples to witness his greatest game...the 35 point outburst to come back from a 21-4 deficit vs. Sean Elliot's highly-ranked kittykats with Lute on the bench.

RE: Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - Papa John - 04-03-2019

(04-03-2019, 06:35 AM)PVTree Wrote:  I remember the bowling alley and arcade at Tressider. I went to LOTS often enough (thanks CS106A), but never knew there was an arcade below...didn't even know there was a below.

With Lichti, I am happy to have been present at Maples to witness his greatest game...the 35 point outburst to come back from a 21-4 deficit vs. Sean Elliot's highly-ranked kittykats with Lute on the bench.

I graduated in 1985 so I missed out on the chance for a personal relationship with Todd. But my roommate and I spent some time in the Tressider arcade. Our games of choice were Frogger and Galaga.

RE: Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - Hank 91 - 04-03-2019

When was the bowling alley there? I've always heard about it, but I don't think I ever saw it. I was there from 1987-1991, and I'm pretty sure the arcade was beneath LOTS the entire time, kind of adjacent to the Coffee House. I took CS106A and B, but most of my time at LOTS was spent writing essays for my English classes. By my senior year, the lab was pretty extensive, with maybe a hundred terminals or so, and it was one of the few places on campus where you could print out an essay. Oh, and now that I think of it, I think the official name was LOTS II.

RE: Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - cctop - 04-03-2019

The Tresidder bowling alley disappeared some time between September 1984 and January 1985, per the Stanford Daily archives:

https://stanforddailyarchive.com/cgi-bin/stanford?a=d&d=stanford19850117-01.2.5&srpos=12&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-tresidder+bowling+alley+lots------

Love,
Your Search Monkey

RE: Todd Lichti elected to College Basketball Hall of Fame - 81alum - 04-03-2019

I was gone by the time Lichti came on the scene.  I spent a lot of time in LOTS--met my wife there--but it was on the ground floor of CERAS then.

But Lichti is the reason I became interested in basketball for the first time.  Before then I had not attended a single BB game.  But I heard about the team doing well and tuned in to a TV broadcast and became entranced.  He and Monty created such an appealing game that I watched from afar every chance I could.  After than I became interested in the women too and moved back to the Bay Area in 1988, giving me 2 appealing teams to watch for 20 years. 

And 1 appealing team to watch for 30 years.