Bleeding blue: Mob leader displays extreme Rhody pride, URI senior leads sports fans

10/28/08 - They wait for the sign. The University of Rhode Island men's basketball team lingers at the bench during a timeout, and the crowd waits anxiously, searching for something.

And then it comes. The crowd's wave begins and a surge of energy blasts clockwise through the Ryan Center stands.

Below, a dark blue figure seems to tug at the human tide, running the perimeter of the court until he is satisfied with the decibel he's created.

The buzzer goes off. Even as he perspires, the dark blue paint that covers senior Jason Coppa's body stays intact. He's a vision in blue - with paint creeping as close to the brim of his brown eyelashes as it possibly can. Coppa rejoins URI's fanatical fans, now known as "The Mob," in their reserved section, ready to do whatever is necessary to let the team know it has their undying support.

But it wasn't always like this.

Coppa has lived to see some of the worst moments in the university's sports history, including the recruiting scandals of former men's basketball coach Jim Harrick. During the past decade, while dozens of coaches on the courts and on the field were trying to bring some glory to "lil' Rhody," Coppa was wiping the sweat off of the Keaney Gymnasium courts between buzzers as a ball boy, and waiting for his turn to "bleed blue."

Coppa boasted of vivid plays and endless memories of Lamar Odom and "the glory days, when we didn't have a fancy mop to wipe the sweat off the floors - we had towels."

But his biggest battle has not been sitting through former football head coach Tim Stowers' six consecutive losing seasons or seeing field hockey, gymnastics and swimming and diving teams cut from the URI sports program.

His biggest battle, he said, is bringing the Rhody fanship to where it should be - to not be the only one whose entire body is painted blue for game day - and bringing the life back to Rhody sports the way universities like Pennsylvania State University and Duke University do.

"I would run the length of the court to get the stands to do the wave," Coppa said, remembering his first year as part of the official URI sports fans group last year. "And then I'd look up and it would stop. I was like, oh man, do I really have to run entire laps for people to do the wave in this place?"

Coppa has been head of the fan group, fondly referred to as "The Mob" at URI, for just a year, but since then, students have started to notice a difference.

"Apathy was a big thing on this campus [before the Mob]," he said. "This place gets quiet when nothing big is going on. We could've put 75 points in one quarter and Monty Ulmer could've shat diamonds on the court but as soon as we get a time out, everyone's silent and back to their seats."

The passion for Rhody sports has always run deep for Coppa, with a definite soft spot for basketball. Coppa seemed to be sorting through a Rolodex of games in his mind when he casually noted he has "probably missed less than 15 URI basketball home games in my life."

While some derive their love of sports from actually playing them, the 5'6" senior said that was never the case with him.

"I had a horrible shot," he said, cringing at his failure of progressing past recreational basketball. "I think I had one of those winning shots that just beat the buzzer, but that was once."

But since he was 3 years old, at least one member of the Coppa family has bought season tickets to the URI men's basketball games. When his parents decided to drop the tickets a few years ago, Coppa couldn't bear to be without Rhode Island basketball, and bought his own season tickets with a friend. This made applying for college an easy choice, not having the heart to turn his back on his team.

"I couldn't apply to any other Division I school," he said. "It would have been too much of a conflict. I didn't want to be rooting for any other team."

Coppa's commitment runs as deep as his passion. In addition to becoming ruler of The Mob, he's also an interning member of the URI sports marketing team.

He's also the "hardest person to date around playoff time," he said.

"I am entirely affected by playoff season," Coppa said, almost in disbelief of his own words. "When we lose, nothing can snap me out of it - not sex, not money, not anything. I am ultimately handed over to the sports gods."

The sports gods also have a bit of control over which baseball cap he decides to wear to school each day, along with several arbitrary choices in apparel.

"I had these old school weed wacker glasses on during game four of the ALCS," he said. "I didn't take them off because when I had them on, we won. So when the next game came on, they were still on."

The glasses stayed with him through sleep and showering, never coming off until their luck ran out. It's the "blind, optimistic faith" that URI fans sometimes needed, he said.

Coppa is already warming up for the upcoming basketball season, getting The Mob in practice at football games, soccer games and any other sporting event they can attend. But for him, though he smiles at the thought of continuing his campaign to breathe the life back into Rhody sports fans, Coppa feels like there is another path waiting for him in the future - at least temporarily.

"When I graduate, I want to be a state trooper," he said. "I grew up with a strong belief in public service."

He said he could see himself in politics someday. Eventually coming back to URI athletics would be better than a dream, he said, but he said he'd want to pursue that later in life.

He smiled, adding, "Yes, believe it or not, there is more to my life than just URI basketball.