He saw the bus rumble down South Crouse Avenue, and immediately Chris Huggins got that feeling. You know, that feeling of unhindered euphoria. The feeling of impending joy. The feeling that something wonderful was about to happen.

‘I got a weird feeling in my gut when they rolled up,’ said Huggins. ‘This is big time.’

This was Girls Gone Wild, and they were here in Syracuse last night.

Huggins ran outside ZJ’s Pizza, his place of employment, to flag the bus down and urged the crew to come inside Harry’s Bar and Grill. He waited for the side door to open. For the party to start. For the magic to begin.

A 20-something guy wearing a black Girls Gone Wild T-shirt stepped out of the bus. Then another. Then another. Then another.

Was this some sort of sick joke?

‘I thought the bus would be full of girls,’ said Harry’s manager Matt Conte, a senior civil engineering major. ‘We all did.’

What they got was a fly-by-night appearance from television’s most salacious advertisers. As the patrons of Harry’s quickly found out, the Girls Gone Wild bus does not contain America’s hottest college girls, where absolutely anything and everything goes. It actually contains four modest-looking gentlemen and a bus driver – plus two leather couches, bunk beds and a king-sized bed in the back.

And yesterday, they were just stopping by, essentially unannounced. The crew was in New York City on Sunday, and drove up this afternoon to check out Syracuse. They stopped at Harry’s at the suggestion of a man outside their hotel in Liverpool.

Last night they weren’t actively recruiting girls for their videos. Rather, they were trying to draw attention in hopes of a return trip, said Ryan, a Girls Gone Wild representative who declined to give his last name.

They hope to return in a couple months, Ryan said. Next time, though, they’d like to come on a Thursday or weekend night. Plus, they’d plan ahead, so as not to walk into a near-empty bar, as was the case last night. When the bus arrived at 8:30 p.m., a few patrons sat at the bar watching Monday Night Football.

There was no flashing, no hot young girls battling for your viewing pleasure. Only four senior Syracuse co-eds sipping Bud Lights.

‘I thought it was going to be huge,’ said Huggins, who was supervising the party for John Shahin, the owner of Harry’s, who wasn’t working last night. ‘I didn’t know it would be four guys riding around the country looking for girls.’

They didn’t look too hard. Two of the reps drank beers, had a few chicken wings and watched the football game. The four senior girls, fully expecting to be coerced into disrobing, sat alone at a table in the corner of the bar.

‘I guess we look a little too conservative,’ said Lauri Monheim, a senior finance and supply chain management major.

Not that they’d pose anyway. Not even for their 15 minutes of fame and a free Girls Gone Wild tank top or thong. There was no party last night. No flashing or disrobing. No unadulterated, hot footage of real college girls or amateur beauties at their naughty best. The few women in attendance were making sure of it.

‘I can guarantee that,’ said Jen Gurny, a senior broadcast journalism major. ‘It’s not gonna happen.’

Published on October 24, 2005 at 12:00 pm