The diehard Syracuse father-son duo rooting for the baseball team that hasn’t existed in 50+ years

Syracuse hasn’t fielded a D1 baseball program in over five decades. That isn’t stopping these two fans from repping the Orange.

Tune into a late-spring ACC baseball game, and you’re likely to find a Syracuse Orange elephant in the room, sitting right behind home plate. Sometimes, there’s two of them.

It’s the opposite of Where’s Waldo?, to be sure, and not just because these fans are donning the big block S or the bright color of Orange. Those fans — Jay Campbell and his son, Curran — are years-long college baseball fans.

And yes, even going as far as representing a school which hasn’t fielded a Division I baseball program since Richard Nixon’s second term.

“I figured someone would see it and maybe say something like, ‘haha, that’s kind of funny,’” Curran said. “I didn’t think it would go as far as it did.”

Curran grew up in Hillsborough, North Carolina, a town which sits roughly 12 miles outside of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It’s also a state at the very heart of ACC baseball. The 2025 conference tournament was most recently held in Durham, which has hosted it 13 times since 1984. That’s the most in ACC Tournament history since it first began in 1973. Charlotte and Greensboro have each hosted three times since 2010.

Specifically with playing, Curran said it never went beyond little league. But as a fan, he and his dad have been to their fair share of Carolina games as UNC baseball season-holders for over a decade.

The seeds for their Syracuse fandom becoming “Twitter famous,” as Jay puts it, were first planted in 2019.

That year, Curran — who eventually graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication — found out he’d been accepted into SU. It was a different path compared to his parents and sister, who all graduated from UNC. Curran and Jay decided to suit up in Syracuse gear for that season’s ACC Tournament.

“We’re thrilled for him… we’re happy for him, but also sort of as a goof, obviously, right? They don’t have a team,” Jay said. “Everybody’s looking at us like, ‘what in the world are these guys in Syracuse doing.’”

Jay’s story is quite similar to Curran’s in terms of their baseball fandom. Jay currently serves as the executive director for the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy. His office sits close by the UNC campus. Jay said he enjoyed baseball, but was not a “huge, huge fan” growing up.

When Curran began playing, that started to change. College basketball started to become their thing. They started going to those Tar Heels games. The 2018 College World Series is when their fandom went into “another gear,” Jay said.

The turning point really came in 2023 during the ACC Tournament. That’s when Curran said everyone started picking up on the whole Syracuse thing — the cameras, commentators, social media, etc.

“The intent was just going to wear (it) for a game or two,” Jay said. “Well, of course, the ACC Network guys pick up on this. And of course, Curran and I are oblivious that this is going on.”

Neither dad nor son were hard to miss, with the former dressed in orange from the head down and the latter rocking a #44 Sean Tucker jersey. Wes Durham of ESPN and the ACC Network had some fun with it during one part of a game broadcast between Virginia and Georgia Tech.

“Most of that kind of Die Hard crowd knew that Syracuse didn’t have a team, and sort of made it fun,” Jay said. “And then a lot of other people would just ask, ‘hey, you know what’s what’s going on?’ The funniest ones are, ‘well, when does Syracuse play?’”

SU’s non-club baseball program remains extinct, but it’s history almost dates back to when the school was first founded. The team’s first year came in 1873, three years after SU was officially established.

Not only did it exist, but the success was clearly there.

Syracuse finished above a .500 winning percentage for 93 seasons (1873-1941 and 1948-72). Syracuse famously ended the 1915 season with the second-best college record in the nation and earned a third-place finish at the 1961 College World Series. Just a few years before the program’s last official season, the then-Orangemen led the NCAA in runs per game.

The same state that boasts the Yankees and Mets at one time had another high-profile team all the way in Upstate.

When the dust settled, 26 university players earned a spot in the MLB, including 1950 NL MVP Jim Konstanty and All-Star and 1971 World Series Champion Dave Giusti.t

The D1 team played its last season in 1972, suiting up for one last game at MacArthur Stadium, home of the AAA Syracuse Chiefs. Inflation and budget cuts were some of the primary culprits behind disbanding the program for good. Ditto for Title IX being written into law as well as logistical concerns.

Over five decades later, Syracuse remains one of five Power Four schools who do not have a D1 team. The rest of the list includes another ACC university, SMU, as well as Wisconsin, Colorado and Iowa State.

Seemingly at this time of year, the same old headlines pop up time and time again, just like a holiday: will there ever be another Syracuse varsity team ever again?

Of course, NunesMagician had to ask these two Syracuse super-baseball fans what they think:

“It’s such a challenge with Syracuse, even more so than places like Boston College or Pittsburgh or Notre Dame that do have teams. It’s the climate,” Curran said. “I know how many people are fans of the sport of baseball, and so I think if they had a team, it would have a good following. I don’t know how good the team could be, especially as a new program, and they don’t have a place to play, obviously. So you’d have to figure that whole thing out.”

“It would be a substantial commitment in terms of facilities… but Syracuse has got a great athletic program overall,” Jay said. “I think this would would be a fantastic addition.”

Baseball isn’t completely in the grave in the 315. Outside the Syracuse Mets — the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Mets — SU does have a club baseball team. It was founded in 1979, seven years after the varsity program was cut.

The club team just a few years ago was a runner-up in the Colonial Club Baseball Association. It’s now part of the National Club Baseball Association, playing in the Division 2 New England West Division. The team finished second in the standings in 2024-25.

Both Curran and Jay emphasized how much members of the SU club team work and called on Syracuse fans to support the team.

“I have got so much, so much admiration for for guys who play club sports in college, not obviously the Syracuse club baseball, but for all club teams,” Jay said. “I want those guys to know that fans out there do know who they are and pay attention to them and and I am completely serious when I say, if Syracuse wanted to get get a program started, put those guys on scholarship and see what happens.”

Whether varsity-level baseball ever returns to SU is still uncertain to this day. What isn’t uncertain: you’re probably not going to miss the orange or oranges behind home plate the next time you watch the ACC baseball tournament.

“It’s all fun. That’s what college sports is about,” Curran said. “Even more than a lot of other sports, just going out there to have a good time. It’s the perfect environment to do stuff like that, just kind of mess around and have fun.”