Around 6:02 p.m. Saturday, it ended. And that's not a reference to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team's 70-57 victory over Samford. Actually, where the Mocs are concerned, that win merely put a perfect exclamation point on their Southern Conference regular-season championship heading into the league tournament next weekend in Asheville, North Carolina.
Instead, what reached a permanent end was the Moc Maniac's 35-year run of craziness, passion and excellence inside McKenzie Arena.
Or as a teary-eyed Dewayne Gass said of his alter ego's fond farewell after receiving a standing ovation from 4,015 fans during halftime: "I'm just so appreciative that the fans embraced a crazy guy like me all these years."
It was never intended to last this long. Looking for a way to charge up the home crowd at McKenzie (then known as the Roundhouse) in the same way he'd seen numerous arenas in the Southeastern Conference go bonkers during his years as an Auburn assistant, Mack McCarthy - then in his second year as UTC's head coach - turned to the marketing expert Gass for advice prior to the start of the 1986-87 season.
When Gass presented him with the Moc Maniac idea, McCarthy asked: "Where can we find someone like that?"
Gass replied: "Me. I'll be the Moc Maniac."
McCarthy gave him a year to prove he deserved the gig.
First time out, Gass hit the court in roller skates.
"Someone forgot to tell (game day director) Mike Royster," Gass recalled during an interview this past week on Local 3 News. "He tried to chase me off the court with a broom."
Yet from that inauspicious debut rose a character beloved by Mocs Nation for a timeline encompassing at least portions of five decades.
"He's been the soul of the games," veteran Mocs booster Patty Hubbard said after collecting his autograph. "He gets the crowd going. He's amazing."
Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / Dewayne Gass gets the crowd pumped up during halftime of Saturday's UTC men's basketball game against Samford at McKenzie Arena.Gass was going to call it quits at the close of the 1997 season, when the Mocs reached the Sweet 16.
"When I first started, I told Mack I'd quit when we got to the Sweet 16," he said. "So I was done. Then Henry (Dickerson, McCarthy's successor) came to me and said, 'Dewayne, we need you.' So I just kept going."
What he's always done best is keep the energy going during television timeouts and halftimes. Whether it's a half-court shot contest, musical chairs at midcourt, kindergarteners shooting layups, folks with blindfolds on looking for a prize while on their knees or just admonishing the crowd to cheer louder, Gass has been the program's constant Energizer Bunny in good times and bad.
In fact, he's done such a good job that prior to the 1993-94 season, Sports Illustrated rated the Roundhouse the third-toughest place to play in America.
Yet the wins and losses are not the memories Gass, now 62, holds most enjoyable or painful as he returns to the stands next season in what he compares to "getting sent back to the kiddie table during Thanksgiving."
The best moment involved the University of Tennessee women's visit to the Roundhouse in November 2008, which ended in a 66-63 win for the Lady Volunteers.
"My 2-year-old daughter went out during a break and slapped the floor, then yelled 'Go Mocs!'" he said. "The place went nuts. I pulled her up and hugged her and said, "Little girl, you have no idea how cool this is.'
"Now fast-forward to a year later when the New Orleans Saints win the Super Bowl. Right after the game, the confetti coming down, (Saints quarterback) Drew Brees picks up his young son and says, 'Little man, you don't know how cool this is.' How amazing is that?"
A second moment he'll remember forever in a good way is when Will Wade, the UTC men's coach at the time and now at LSU, asked Gass to come by his office for a few minutes.
Recalled the Maniac: "He looks at me and says, 'I heard you lost your (day) job. My dad lost his job one time when I was very young, so I know how hard that can be. I'm single right now and making pretty good money. Here's a check to help you out. Just please don't tell anybody until I'm no longer the coach.' And I haven't told a soul until right now."
And the worst moment?
"It actually comes at the start of every season when I look up in the stands and see the people we've lost," Gass said. "It really hits you when you look at the seats you know they sat in and they're empty."
Even as the school presented him with a framed No. 5 UTC game jersey and Hamilton County District 3 Commissioner Greg Martin handed him a proclamation for his loyalty to UTC, Gass had a wee bit of an empty feeling for not being at his now-16-year-old daughter Christina's basketball playoff game for Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe.
But his sons Joshua and Christian were on hand, as well as his wife Micah.
"This isn't about me," he said more than once Saturday. "This is about this great school, this great city and all the great people who live here and support this program."
Perhaps, but it's also about, in the words of McKenzie Arena public address announcer Scott "Quake" McMahen: "The most enthusiastic, dedicated, passionate Moc of them all."
Especially since we're likely to never witness such devotion again.
Mark WiedmerContact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.