I’ve been holding on to this Illini story for a while now, wondering when the right time to share it would be. With the biggest and quite possibly final game of the season today, it feels right to tell it today.
I’m a college student at Illinois. Last fall, me and my brother were playing 7 on 7 intramural flag football. Our team was warming up right before the game started (games are played at the ARC fields, corner of First and Stadium) and sizing up the other team. A bunch of their guys arrive right before the ref blows his whistle to get the game started. I hear two of my teammates whispering to each other. Our defense walked out onto the field, choosing assignments, and all of a sudden, lining up across from my brother in a wide receiver stance, is a 6-6, 225 lb grown man with tattoos and two strands of multicolored hair across his face. My jaw drops. As you might have guessed by now, it’s Terrence Shannon Jr.
Keep in mind that this is an intramural flag football team. We have 1 guy who got D-2 football offers, and the rest of us played high school sports. We don’t have anyone on TSJ’s level, which is so far above ours we can’t even see it.
The game starts, and it’s insane how good Shannon is. He had a target on the sideline on a ball three feet over his head, and he jumped up and caught it like it was nothing. Second drive, he used one hand to snag a ball in the back of the endzone with a guy damn near blanketing him. Third drive, his team had the ball on their own 20 (field is 60 yards long). We can’t give up anything deep and we’ll go into the half down a score, which would be a win for us. They have enough time for two plays. The first one is a wide receiver screen to Shannon on my side of the field.
When you watch him on TV, he’s fast. When you watch him in person, he’s faster. When you are trying to tackle him, good luck. I was a yard behind him when he caught the ball. He took two strides and blew past half our team. A juke move and the entire defense except my brother Jack was chasing after him. Shannon angled to the sideline and my brother planted there. Either Terrence would have to cut back inside to all the other defenders or he could head out of bounds. He chose option 3: go through the defender. He ran full speed into Jack and bowled him over.
I am only slightly ashamed to admit that my first thought was not of my own sibling, but of TSJ’s health. If he got hurt, I thought, our basketball team is going to suck. Terrence didn’t even go down. He stumbled out of bounds, turned to the ref and started asking if Jack could get in his way like that. My brother came up holding his wrist (day-after photo below) but said he could play through it.
The other team ended up scoring the next play, and after halftime Terrence only played a couple of snaps on defense. I managed to pull his flag on an interception he was returning, and after the game (we lost by more than a few) he was out of there before most of the team had walked off of the field.
This Illini season has been amazing in so many ways, but for me the biggest moments have been watching “Transition Terrence” turn into a freight train with the ball in his hands. All I can do is watch and grin as he takes off down the court, just like that screen pass, and has the same level of success against D-1 basketball players as he did against our team of college guys that night. Best of luck to him and all of the Illini!