A thumbs-up from Wichita State men’s basketball coach Gregg Marshall is all it took.

With a little extra confidence, sophomore Max Runyon ran up to Marshall and asked him to pose with his own face, enlarged and plastered on a poster.

And Marshall did.

Runyon is the founder of Students for Marshallville, a designated area outside Charles Koch Arena honoring Marshall and the men’s basketball team. The group kicked off their first event on Nov. 2, at the exhibition game against Oklahoma Baptist.

“It was amazing,” Runyon said of Marshall’s photo. “He really liked the concept. It was a cool moment just to mesh the fans and the team.”

The concept of Marshallville was in the works last year as the men’s basketball team made their historic run in the NCAA tournament. At the time, Runyon approached his WSU 101 peer leader, Andrew Longhofer, for guidance.

Longhofer, now legislative director for Student Government Association, helped Runyon draft a resolution, which passed a couple of weeks into the fall semester.

The resolution recognized that WSU is moving toward a more traditional university with the changes President John Bardo has made to the master plan and the addition of a new dormitory.

It also recognized the recent success of the men’s basketball team and the importance of a physical space for fans to congregate before games.

“We’re really trying to make a more traditional college for the student that wants to go to Wichita State, but doesn’t necessarily want the reputation of a commuter school,” Runyon said.

With the SGA resolution, Marshallville now has a little more credibility, Longhofer said.

“Part of [the university’s] concern before the resolution was that they were concerned there wouldn’t be support from student body,” Longhofer said. “Since SGA is a representative of the student body, that represented to the staff that…the student body does support this.”

Students and fans filed into Koch Arenathe arena at the Nov. 2 exhibition game and stopped to pose with the Marshall heads and signed a T-shirt in support of Marshallville.

ichita SFreshman Sam Belsan heard about Marshallville over the summer and said it was a no-brainer to help out the cause. Since then, Belsan has been doing design work for Marshallville’s Facebook page.

“We need a rally place anyway,” Belsan said. “I think it’s just a practical application of student support for the basketball program.”

Others aren’t as sure about Marshallville, specifically the name of group.

“My point of view is that yes, we made it to the Final Four, and that’s awesome. And Gregg Marshall took us there. But we’ve done it before,” senior James Deckard said. “We’ve had great coaches and I think that if we do anything honoring any coach, we should honor past coaches before we honor current coaches.”

Deckard mentioned Gary Thompson, who led the men’s team to the Final Four in 1965, as well as Gene Smithson, who led the Shockers to an Elite Eight in 1981.

Runyon has noticed the discussions about Marshallville and its controversial name, but feels as though the name is justified.

“A lot of colleges go that route of wanting to honor a current coach who they really idolize,” he said. “And I feel like Gregg Marshall is someone that a lot of people idolize.”

For later and bigger games coming up on the schedule, Runyon hopes to create a “campout” space for fans as they get tickets or wait for doors to open.

“We’re hoping the administration will kind of get on board and see that this is something that will hopefully be a tradition at the school,” Runyon said. “We’d like it to become a sort of symbol on our campus.”