Completed Event: Men's Basketball at UNLV on February 7, 2026 , Loss , 78, to, 80
M Basketball
at UNLV
L 78-80
Grand Canyon University Athletics
Matt Anderson (left) and Wild Bill Sproat
Utah State’s Student Fans Make Themselves Hurd
10/26/2012 10:58:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Utah State’s Student Fans Make Themselves Hurd
LOGAN, Utah -- Herd, meet the Hurd. Class is now in session on how to sustain student support of a men’s basketball program.
Friday night’s exhibition game between GCU and Utah State demonstrated that a well-orchestrated student section can make a monster of a difference for the home team. Utah State’s Hurd – unlike the Antelope version, it’s spelled with a “u” for Utah – brings it hard, and it’s one reason the Aggies hardly ever lose on their Dee Glen Smith Spectrum court.
The Utah State arena seats 10,000, and a full third of those are Hurd. Yes, they stand for the entire game, but so do lots of student sections. Here’s what sets them apart:
Sproat is credited with launching a new wave of Aggie enthusiasm when he took off his shirt during a game three or four years ago. The next season, he broke out a Chippendales costume for a game against much-reviled rival Brigham Young, and since then he has dressed as – this is an incomplete list -- a mermaid, Peter Pan, Tigger, Cupid, a pirate, a Ninja Turtle, a blue-wigged hippie and a fully lit Christmas tree (he ran an extension cord to his front-row seat behind the basket).
“Just to be an Aggie, you’re a little crazy,” the genial Sproat admitted before Friday’s game, which the Hurd treated as if it were a regular-season contest, rolling out the familiar “I Believe That We Will Win!” and “Winning Team! Losing Team!” chants now widely attributed to Utah State.
“It’s cold here in the winter and there’s not a lot to do,” Sproat said. “But people here are so creative, they do stupid stuff every game.”
Sproat considers himself semi-retired from the costume thing, and on Friday he wore an Aggies basketball jersey with “Wild Bill” in letters across the back. When GCU played in Logan two years ago, he dressed as Godzilla and urged other fans to throw paper airplanes at him. (Even the players on the court couldn’t resist taking it in.)
Lately, he has been tutoring Matt Anderson, 23, a Utah State junior, in the ways of Wild Bill, planning to pass the torch. One thing’s for certain: Much to the chagrin of teams that come to Logan, the Hurd isn’t going away.
“It’s like having another man on the court,” said senior Kyisean Reed, a Utah State player. “I had heard about them, but when you get in here and experience it, it’s a whole different thing.”
LOGAN, Utah -- Herd, meet the Hurd. Class is now in session on how to sustain student support of a men’s basketball program.
Friday night’s exhibition game between GCU and Utah State demonstrated that a well-orchestrated student section can make a monster of a difference for the home team. Utah State’s Hurd – unlike the Antelope version, it’s spelled with a “u” for Utah – brings it hard, and it’s one reason the Aggies hardly ever lose on their Dee Glen Smith Spectrum court.
The Utah State arena seats 10,000, and a full third of those are Hurd. Yes, they stand for the entire game, but so do lots of student sections. Here’s what sets them apart:
- They have their own newsletter, “The Bulligerence,” which is published before each home game and lays out the cheer plan.
- They have their own webpage, www.usu.edu/hurd, and their leadership committee meets weekly.
- All of them know the words and motions to “The Scotsman,” an alternate school fight song that is played ad nauseam throughout the game.
- And, last but not least, they have a legitimate star in Wild Bill Sproat, a bearded, beefy 29-year-old whose antics have landed him on ESPN more times than he can remember.
Sproat is credited with launching a new wave of Aggie enthusiasm when he took off his shirt during a game three or four years ago. The next season, he broke out a Chippendales costume for a game against much-reviled rival Brigham Young, and since then he has dressed as – this is an incomplete list -- a mermaid, Peter Pan, Tigger, Cupid, a pirate, a Ninja Turtle, a blue-wigged hippie and a fully lit Christmas tree (he ran an extension cord to his front-row seat behind the basket).
“Just to be an Aggie, you’re a little crazy,” the genial Sproat admitted before Friday’s game, which the Hurd treated as if it were a regular-season contest, rolling out the familiar “I Believe That We Will Win!” and “Winning Team! Losing Team!” chants now widely attributed to Utah State.
“It’s cold here in the winter and there’s not a lot to do,” Sproat said. “But people here are so creative, they do stupid stuff every game.”
Sproat considers himself semi-retired from the costume thing, and on Friday he wore an Aggies basketball jersey with “Wild Bill” in letters across the back. When GCU played in Logan two years ago, he dressed as Godzilla and urged other fans to throw paper airplanes at him. (Even the players on the court couldn’t resist taking it in.)
Lately, he has been tutoring Matt Anderson, 23, a Utah State junior, in the ways of Wild Bill, planning to pass the torch. One thing’s for certain: Much to the chagrin of teams that come to Logan, the Hurd isn’t going away.
“It’s like having another man on the court,” said senior Kyisean Reed, a Utah State player. “I had heard about them, but when you get in here and experience it, it’s a whole different thing.”
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