Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Bleeding Tricolour: A humble suggestion -- the Block D destroyers

Queen's defensive tackle Dee Sterling had the dominant defensive performance ever seen since Charles Jefferson in the 1982 Ridgemont-Lincoln game, but it's not clear how he's doing in terms of hero worship.

Sterling's 5 1/2 sacks vs. Laurier erased a Queen's single-game record shared by Jim (The Sack Guru) Aru, who had the famous ARU CRU back in the '90s.

The ARU CRU, for reasons that are lost to history (and sometimes it's best not to ask why), was a group of Gaels fans who latched on to Jim Aru (always pronounced quickly, "jimaroo"). Aru was the type of player whom football coaches invariably describing as having a "high motor," which he needed to have in order to survive as a 210-pound defensive end.

The ARU CRU's trademarks included sporting polyester leisure suits, rainbow wigs and blue, red and gold facepaint. And of course, whenever Jim Aru's name was boomed out on the Richardson Stadium public address system for a tackle or sack, which was often, you heard their battle cry, which shall never be forgotten:

Aru, Aru, Aru is on fire ... to the tune of a song which had been popular a few years earlier.



OK, maybe it was sophomoric, but no one's judging. The point is that now that Jim Aru's record has been erased, Dee Sterling needs a similar sort of cult following. The Block D Destroyers?

Related:
Campus Corner: Congrats to Sterling and Byers... (Sporting Madness)

4 comments:

Andrew Bucholtz said...

I love this idea (and thanks for the info on the Aru fan club: I hadn't heard of it before). Some individual fan clubs have popped up on and off at Gaels' sporting events in the last few years, but I haven't seen anything as consistent as the one you mention (though I'm usually watching the game and not the fans, so I might have missed it). Also, Block D Destroyers would be a superb name...

Tyler King said...

I hate to always be the downer here, but one game does not a fan club make...

sager said...

Tyler, Sterling played in the East-West bowl, he's on the CFL's radar. He's had more than one good game.

Stop. Being. So. Literal. We're. Just. Having. Fun.

Andrew Bucholtz said...

Sterling was pretty amazing last year as well... he was a repeated attendee at the Quarterback Club weekly media session as the defensive player of the week, if my memory hasn't completely failed me.