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Dave Krupinski, the founder of Johnny Jungle, attended Christian Brothers Academy of Lincroft, NJ before attending St. John’s. Christian Brothers, CBA for short, was a school enriched with both academic and athletic tradition. Most commonly known for its powerhouse basketball teams which have dominated the Jersey Shore for decades. In addition to having a strong team they also had the strongest student fan base known as the “Colt Crazies”

The students would pack the varsity gym screaming and chanting by the hundreds echoing in their opponents ear from tip to final buzzer until their team emerged victorious. The energy by the fans always gave their team confidence and more importantly an edge on their opponents.

Dave would attend St. John’s to be a part of the Sports Management program with high hopes and dreams of being in the greatest city in the world, New York, to study what he loved. He was drawn into the school after St. John’s sent him tickets to see St. John’s vs Duke where St. John’s upset the Bluedevils with two free throws with zero time remaining by Marcus Hatten. With the atmosphere he saw at that game in addition to being 15 minutes away from Shea he was in.

Two years of Dave’s college career went by and he was completely fooled into the atmosphere that really took place at games. Lackluster support, plenty of empty seats, overpriced tickets, over bearing security, and to top that all off a team with no talent. Students didn’t want to go to games because it was too expensive and too much of a hassle arguing with administrators and public safety to simply stand up at games. There was no spirit, no pride, and no tradition for a once proud program. Dave tried to get involved with student affairs but the school was disinterested in his ideas or his desire to have rowdy student behavior at games.

In 2007 Dave and his friends were all entering their senior year of their studies. In the evenings the boys would all meet up at their house after they were finished with class, jobs, and internships and it was time to sit around the living room, watch sports, do work, and talk. It was nearing basketball season and well like most we speculated would this be the year we finally get to the Big East Tournament? Can we get one for us? We deserve it. We were diehard fans who were tired of everything. We needed to get more organized as a student body and we started bouncing some ideas around of what we could do. We thought of having our own underground student section since the school’s “Redzone” was pretty lame. We bounced around some ideas and the idea of Johnny Jungle was slowly coming around. The guys on the couch who were the original members were Dave Krupinski, Edward McDonough, Edward Simone, Matthew Borzello, William Bendernagel, and William Blake.

The boys attended the pre-season game to use it as practice for the regular season. The six of them sat in the front row and screamed, heckled, and cheered the whole game. They were heard throughout Carnesecca Arena and the opposing coach came up to them after the game and shook all of their hands and said, “you guys were great”

In the preseason game there were many students in attendance however they were scattered groups in the stands. Our goal as the “Jungle” was to sit as one student body.

The first game of the regular season was upon us and like every first game of the season the arena was more packed than usual. We arrived early, started roll call, and we noticed a few more gathered behind us giving us the nod that they were on board too. St. John’s won.

The second game of the season the “Jungle” nearly doubled in size and we had something going. The team won and came over for handshakes after the game. Everyone was excited and the jungle was born and growing wild. The team made it into the Big East tourney after a four year drought only to lose a tough battle to Marquette in the first round.

Being a student at St. John’s you are naturally a Johnny. New York City has been referred to as the “Concrete Jungle” New York is a busy place filled with more mixes of people than any other place in the world. It’s simply a jungle of taxis in the streets, people on the sidewalks, and skyscrapers filling in the rest. We are privileged enough to play our Big East games at the Mecca of basketball, Madison Square Garden. Yes the Garden, home of the Knicks, Rangers, Liberty, and St. John’s. It may be known as the “Garden” to the people around the country but when it comes to St. John’s we know it as the “Jungle”

JohnnyJungle.com was created in late August of 2007 and released to the public the following month. The website was slow to start in its fetal stages and saw many changes over the coming months but provided in depth analysis throughout the season and caught the attention of St. John’s and their opponent’s fans. The website has cleaned up well and has already had over 1.5 million viewers in its first 9 months of existence. The Jungle is growing larger and larger everyday.