S-I-U! S-I-U! The Uncensored History of the Dawg Pound (OK, Maybe a Little Censored)

Mike Mandis walks up to the SIU ticket office with 100 student IDs in hand. He told an office worker at the lost-and-found he needed them for an art project — a harmless little fib that made his mission possible. 

He isn’t sure how this is going to go, but he knows one thing. He needs a block of tickets so students can sit together at tonight’s Saluki basketball game. The year is 1993 ("maybe '94") and SIU has no official student section, no designated space for diehard fans, and no way for students to claim seats as a group. Mandis sees a problem and has found a way to fix it.

It’s not about following the rules to the letter. He is a college student, after all. It’s about packing the stands, creating chaos, and giving SIU basketball a home-court advantage like never before.

"This wasn't the official start of the SIU Dawg Pound," Mandis said. "But it was the start of it becoming an organized group."

Back then, there were no matching T-shirts or coordinated chants. Just a group of rowdy fans who wanted to make life miserable for opposing teams.

The Dawg Pound started in 1992 with Nashville, Ill., natives Chris Ziegler, Brandon Haake, and Todd Dinkelman, as well as Matt Cardoni from Sherman, Ill.

Mandis saw an opportunity to take things to the next level. "A bunch of students wanted to sit together, but nobody could get that many kids organized. So I stepped in," he said.

What started as a loosely assembled mob of crazy fans would soon turn into something much bigger.

From the Top Row to the Front Lines:
The Dawg Pound Takes Shape

Ziegler still gets goosebumps when he talks about it. He and his best friend, Haake, grew up in Nashville, following The Southern Illinoisan’s coverage of SIU basketball. They were obsessed with Duke and the iconic Cameron Crazies, and when they arrived in Carbondale as freshmen in 1992, they expected to see something similar—a fired-up student section giving the team a real home-court advantage.

Instead, they walked into the SIU Arena and found... nothing.

"There was literally no student section," Ziegler recalls. "We were expecting something like Duke, or at least Illinois’ Orange Krush. But when we showed up, nobody was cheering. Nobody was yelling. We sat there thinking, why isn’t anybody making noise?”

He and Haake had started in the very top row of Section SS (now known as 206), watching stud forward Ashraf Amaya bully opponents down low. It was clear that SIU had a good team, but the atmosphere in the arena didn’t match their energy.

"After a few games, we just said, ‘screw it, let’s go down there,’" Ziegler says.

So they did.

They moved down to Section L, five or six rows up, right behind the band and next to the cheerleaders. The shift made all the difference.

“We just decided, we’re gonna do this,” Ziegler said.

At first, it was just a few of them. But something started happening. Local businesses like Silkworm stepped in, providing the first Dawg Pound T-shirts.

The cheerleaders loved them. The band loved them. And slowly, other students started gravitating toward them.

"The energy they brought to games was incredible," said Christie Mitchell, former Saluki cheerleader from the mid-1990s and current instructor at the SIU College of Business and Analytics. "They knew how to pack the stands, rattle the competition, and make some noice. I am convinced they were the difference between a W and an L on many occasions."

It didn’t take long before the players started noticing too.

"We’d be on campus and players would come up to us like, ‘Hey, you’re the Dawg Pound guys! Thanks, man—that’s cool,’” Zielger said. “Then Coach (Rich) Herrin came over and told us, ‘Hey, thanks for doing this. Keep it going.’ That gave us the motivation to go even harder.”

A Love-Hate Relationship

By the mid-90s, the Dawg Pound had become a full-blown force, yelling at refs, getting in opposing players’ heads, and making life hell for visiting teams. But not everyone was on board.

"There were definitely some people who didn’t like the yelling and screaming,” Ziegler laughs. “Mostly opponents.”  

At one point, security was getting pressure from fans to kick them out. That’s when Tippy "Tip" Cook — a former SIU football player and longtime arena security guard — stepped up for them.

"Tip had been security for decades, and he had our backs," Ziegler says. "There were times when people wanted us gone, but Tip fought for us. He told them, ‘These kids are fine.’”

The core group of rowdy diehards was always in the middle, but they were eventually surrounded by a mix of high school kids, Carbondale locals, and even middle schoolers who wanted in on the action.

"Southern Illinois just adopted us," Ziegler says.

The Dawg Pound wasn’t going anywhere.

Road Trips, Upsets, and Becoming a National Story

As the Dawg Pound grew in legend, so did their ambitions. When SIU made the NCAA Tournament in 1995, Ziegler and the crew weren’t about to miss it. They loaded up and drove all the way to Austin, Texas, for the Salukis’ first-round game against Syracuse.

"We were front and center, right on Syracuse the entire game," Ziegler says. "It was one of those games where, when there’s an upset brewing, the whole arena turns on the favorite. Arkansas played after us, and their fans started cheering for us. There were thousands of Razorback fans rallying behind SIU as Shane Hawkins was draining 3s. It was unreal."

It was moments like that—standing in a sea of enemy fans, making noise, and seeing their team respond—that solidified what they had built.

"I still remember every home game," said Ziegler, who now lives in the St. Louis region. "It was such a magical time. To this day, I’ll go somewhere, and someone will say, ‘Hey, I know you…’ And then it clicks — 'You’re one of the Dawg Pound guys!' It still happens when we go to MVC tournaments or games against SLU. It’s crazy."

The Madness, the Rivalries, and the Legends

Ziegler rattles off the names of the players they went to battle against — Bubba Wells with Austin Peay State University and Shea Seals from Tulsa to name a couple.

"We got under Bubba Wells’ skin so bad. He was this big power forward, just a beast. At one point, he hit an and-one, turned to us, and screamed. I nearly jumped onto the court to fight him," Ziegler laughs. "I’m 5’10,” by the way."

Against Tulsa, they came up with a chant that involved imitating a seal by clapping their hands out in front of them every time Seals had the ball.

"He started shaking his head, trying to block us out. We were annoying him," Ziegler grinned.

And then, there was the whole Playboy incident.

“We got our hands on a couple of trash bags full of Playboy magazines and brought them to a game,” Ziegler says, laughing. "When the ref came to our baseline, he glanced down at the shredded pages from the magazines all over the floor, looked up at us, looked back down, then just smiled. It was ridiculous."

‘Not One of My Proudest Moments’

Brian R. Powell echoes the ridiculousness of the early Dawg Pound years. Thirty-plus years since cheering on the Salukis as a student, He still lives in Carbondale, works at SIH, and remains a dedicated supporter of Saluki Athletics.

These days, instead of standing for two hours screaming at opposing players, he and some friends fire up the grill at Itchy Jones Stadium, BBQ, and raise money for the SIU baseball team.

But back then? He was one of the wild ones.

“I was a bit of a crazy man,” Powell admits. “I remember an official calling a technical on us for our language, and I literally ran around the outside of the court yelling at him while the game was still going on. Not one of my proudest moments, but that’s the kind of passion we had in the Dawg Pound.”

That energy was relentless. They stood the entire game, bellowing well-researched chants (pre-internet, mind you), that could make the mothers of opposing players blush. Some chants, by today’s standards, seem pretty tame.

“‘You suuuuuuuck!’ That was a staple,” Powell said. “The league even started cracking down on that, which seems ridiculous now.”

But rules didn’t matter much to the early Dawg Pound crew. Passion did.

The Bruce Weber Era: A Dominant Run Fueled by the Dawg Pound

By the time Bruce Weber arrived in Carbondale in 1998, SIU basketball wasn’t the powerhouse it once was. The program was struggling, the stands weren’t full, and the once-feared home-court advantage had faded.

“We were begging people to come to games,” Weber recalled. “The first game we had to beg people to come, and by my last game, people were sleeping outside just to get in. That’s how much it changed.”

Over the next five years, Weber would rebuild SIU into a mid-major powerhouse, taking the Salukis to back-to-back NCAA Tournament runs, including a Sweet 16 appearance in 2002.

But he didn’t do it alone.

The Dawg Pound played a huge role in SIU’s dominance.

SIU Arena (now Banterra Center) was always a tough place to play, but by the early 2000s, it became one of the most feared home environments in college basketball.

"Our place became intimidating. No doubt about it," Weber said. "The Dawg Pound being right behind the basket, right on top of the floor—it changed the game."

Creighton coach Dana Altman, one of Weber’s biggest rivals in the Missouri Valley Conference, didn't enjoy bringing his team to Carbondale.

“They hated us,” Weber laughed. “Many years later, I flew out to Utah to watch Kyle Korver (former Creighton guard) and Darren Williams play in the playoffs for the Jazz. We were at a dinner one night, and Kyle told me the Dawg Pound got in his head.”

Korver was the star of Creighton’s squad during this stretch. The Dawg Pound relentlessly heckled him, waving signs, chanting, and making life miserable every time he touched the ball.

“I still have one of those ‘I H8 CR8N' T-shirts somewhere,” Weber said. “Even years later, Korver asked me if I had one. I made a few calls and got him one. That’s how much the atmosphere stuck with him.”

Kent Williams: "We Didn’t Lose at Home. Period."

No player embodied the Weber-era Dawgs more than Kent Williams, the fiery guard from Mt. Vernon who helped lead SIU to national prominence.

During his final two seasons, SIU did not lose a single home game.

“It wasn’t just our team—it was the environment,” he said. “The Dawg Pound was a huge part of that."

Williams, one of the most durable players in SIU history, often leaned on the crowd’s energy to keep going.

“You play 30 games a year, you get tired,” he said. “You need that adrenaline and that crowd base to help.”

The impact of the Dawg Pound wasn’t just felt in Carbondale. SIU fans traveled — everywhere.

“We had so many students that would travel to Arch Madness and NCAA Tournament games,” Williams said. “You’d look up and see a sea of maroon.”

Senior Night, Kyle Korver, and Court Stormings

One of the most legendary Dawg Pound moments came on Senior Night in 2003, when SIU faced off against Creighton.

An hour before the game, Korver came out to warm up.

“The moment he walked out, an entire arena booed him,” Williams recalled. “Full-on chants started. He actually went back inside."

SIU won that game, inducing one of many court stormings during Williams’ tenure.

“There were so many huge moments,” he said. “Beating Indiana State on a buzzer-beater. A bracket-buster win over Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Every time, the Dawg Pound was leading the charge.”

Weber left SIU in 2003 to take over at Illinois, but he never forgot the electric atmosphere the Dawg Pound created.

"I've coached at Purdue, Illinois, Kansas State, and I can tell you—SIU’s atmosphere was special,” Weber said. “We had Big Ten energy in a mid-major program.”

There was still a little magic left after Matt Painter took over for Weber. Local educator and Saluki graduate Nathan Michels sat in the Dawg Pound in February 2004 when the Painter-led Salukis drew Hawaii in a late-night ESPN Bracketbuster game.

"The Hawaii game with tipoff at 11 at night was crazy," he said. "If I remember right, the Dawg Pound sang the national anthem. It was a Saturday night. People were hammered."

Downturn & Revival

By the 2010s, the Dawg Pound had lost its edge.

Carly Holtkamp, then Assistant Director of Student Center Programs, saw it firsthand when she moved back to Carbondale after leaving the area for a couple of years.

“The student section was sad,” she says.

So she made a move.

Holtkamp went to SIU Athletics and took charge, laying the groundwork for its modern revival.

She flipped the Dawg Pound to the other side of the arena, got Learfield involved for sponsorships, and made it an exclusive club again.

Her biggest challenge? Finding a student leader who could carry it forward.

Enter Dylan Chambers.

After COVID nearly wiped out student engagement, the young leader stepped up.

“I saw an opportunity to bring back the passion and unity that the Dawg Pound represents,” Chambers recalls.

At SIU, Chambers wasn’t just rebuilding a student section — he was leading a movement. He raised over $100,000 for the Dawg Pound, helping SIU’s student section gain national recognition, including a spot on Big Game Boomer’s Top 20 list for Best Student Sections in 2023. He made sure SIU games became memorable experiences again.

"Post-COVID, students were craving connection and school spirit. I wanted to harness that energy and rebuild something special," he said.

That energy hasn’t faded. Even after graduating, Chambers remains a fixture in the stands, still attending games, still rallying the Dawg Pound, and still making noise for the Salukis.

His presence on campus has only grown — now, as assistant director of annual giving at the SIU Foundation, he’s helping secure the future of SIU Athletics in a whole new way.

“The Dawg Pound is a legacy,” Chambers says. “And I’ll always be part of it.”

From leading chants to driving campus initiatives, Chambers has become a force at SIU — one who isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

Carrying the Torch: The Dawg Pound Today

Corey Crombar was born into Saluki culture.

Growing up in Carbondale, he lived and breathed SIU games. His mom, a Saluki alum, made sure he knew the tradition. Even before he set foot on campus as a student, he knew the Dawg Pound was something he would join.

“I was a Saluki before I ever took a class here,” Crombar says. “I’m going to graduate a Saluki. It’s in my blood.”

His path to leading the Dawg Pound started in high school, where he was the president of Carbondale High School’s student section, The Bleacher Bums. That experience got him noticed.

Chambers, the Dawg Pound president at the time, saw Crombar in action at a few basketball games and was impressed.

“I guess I made enough noise to get his attention,” Crombar jokes.

Chambers brought him onto the board as a freshman, making him Vice President of Member Operations. He was at every meeting, every game, doing whatever it took to fire up the students.

Then, in April 2024, he went for the top job.

Under Crombar’s leadership, the Dawg Pound is continuing the work Chambers and Holtkamp worked so hard to get back on track.

“In the 31-year history of the Dawg Pound, we’ve never had this many members,” Crombar said. “Right now, we’re sitting at 296. That’s the highest number on record.”

With a six-member board and a nine-person committee, the Dawg Pound is more organized than ever, working closely with SIU Athletics, the SIU Foundation, and other student organizations to keep the stands packed. They plan themes, giveaways, and outreach efforts to Greek Life and RSOs.

“We do whatever it takes to bring as many people to the games as humanly possible,” Crombar says. “Our student-athletes deserve our support.”

Current players and coaches appreciate the sentiment.

"Coming here and seeing the Dawg Pound continue to grow, and seeing how much the fans come and show love—it’s big for us,” said SIU men’s basketball guard Damien Mayo, Jr., who transferred from the student-sectionless Missouri State prior to this season. “It brings so much energy to the arena, and as players, we feed off of that."

And while mostly considered a basketball-first student section, the Dawg Pound does its best to support all SIU sports and student-athletes.

"The Dawg Pound has no idea how much it means to have them at the games, cheering so loudly,” said SIU softball coach Jen Sewell. “It’s not just basketball or football—when they show up for softball, baseball, and other sports, it makes a huge impact. The players notice, and it helps us play at a higher level."

Accidentally Iconic

Long after Crombar graduates, he knows the legacy of SIU’s fiery student section will live on.

“I want people to look back in 20 years and say, this is how the Dawg Pound became what it is today.”

Mandis, Ziegler, and the rest of the early Dawg Pound crew would love to say they had a grand vision for all of this, too — that they knew their antics would help build something that would last for generations.

But, let’s be honest.

"We just wanted a way to watch sports and party for free," Mandis laughed.

In the end, his so-called “art project” worked. He got his hands on 100 student IDs, turned them into tickets, and packed the stands.

Decades later, the guys who built the Dawg Pound still laugh about it. “We all actually turned out to be pretty successful. Surprisingly, nobody’s in jail,” Mandis deadpanned.

The Dawg Pound epitomizes SIU’s reputation as a mid-major underdog: Hustle, loyalty, and a chip on their shoulder.

And as long as there are Salukis on the court and students in the stands, the Dawg Pound will be there — loud, proud, and just a little bit out of control.

Editor's Note: This is probably the most fun I've ever had writing a feature. If you see me around, ask for a couple of the truly uncensored stories haha. Special thanks to all of the helpful people who were so willing to contribute their memories and photos to this piece. If we left anyone out, it was not intentional. Maybe there's a Part II in our future. And finally, thank you to Silkworm for supporting our independent journalism efforts.

- Joe Szynkowski

Here's a fun short video I grabbed after a recent win.