It’s almost impossible to miss Johnny Oliver in the Otto’s Army student section during a Syracuse University game at the Carrier Dome.

Dubbing himself the “Orange Knight,” the loyal SU sports fan and vice president of Otto’s Army can be spotted rocking his orange Batman mask and an orange cape he ordered online.

“Some people go in face paint, or go shirtless and paint their body orange,” said Oliver, a junior broadcast and digital journalism major. “I love Batman a lot … and it just kind of dawned on me — why don’t I spray paint a Batman mask orange?”

But before he cheered for the Orange, Oliver spent most of his childhood cheering for the University of Virginia, which will face SU’s men’s basketball team on Sunday in the Elite Eight in Chicago.

Oliver, whose father is an alumnus of UVA, grew up in Richmond, Virginia. Having lived about an hour away from Charlottesville where UVA is located, Oliver said he went to many of the university’s football and basketball games. At one point, Oliver said he even attended a UVA basketball camp.

But Oliver’s biggest UVA moment was in 2007, when Virginia played against Duke University. The game was on his birthday, and Virginia won in overtime after “an incredibly dramatic game.”

“It’s really weird because my freshman year, when I camped out for two weeks for the Duke game … that was also on my birthday, and Syracuse beat Duke in overtime,” he said. “It was a weird feeling when I realized that was a large parallel.”

Courtesy of Johnny Oliver

It was this game on Feb. 1, 2014, when Syracuse beat Duke 91-89 in overtime, that Oliver’s love for SU sports was cemented. He said it was “the nail on the coffin,” assuring he would never go back to cheering for Virginia again.

That same year, Oliver went on a 9-hour bus ride with Otto’s Army to Virginia to watch the two teams play against each other. The first half was fine, he said, but during the second half, Virginia “started to stomp on Syracuse.”

“I tell people this and sometimes they cringe at my word choices, but the second half when UVA was destroying us — it honestly felt like I was watching a video of my dog getting hit by a car running it over in slow motion, over and over and over again,” Oliver said. “It was the absolute worst feeling in my stomach.”

Heading into Sunday evening’s Elite Eight match, Oliver said his brother, who was raised as a UVA fan like him, is already talking trash about Syracuse.

And while Oliver will be cheering for the Orange, he said that from a completely neutral perspective, he believes that, ultimately, Virginia will win.

“People are going to read this and they’re going to point out that I’m not a loyal Syracuse fan, but honest to God, I think UVA is going to win,” Oliver said. “… Plus — oh God, it pains me to make this public — I picked UVA to win in my March Madness pool. It feels like a dagger going through my heart to say that I picked them to win the national championship.”

Published on March 26, 2016 at 8:06 pm

Contact Clare: [email protected]