Who’s cutting the onions?!Another long one, friends. tl;dr...
This morning I've slowly savored all 22 pages (so far) of the post-game comment thread. What strikes me most is not that we won; nor that we won in what was an-end-to-end battle in which we simply ran the ball down the throat of our allegedly-superior opponent; nor that our beloved HC split open the skull of his counterpart, rammed an 80-inch large screen and sectional sofa into his cortex, cracked open a magnum, kicked up his feet, and relaxed there for the entire second half (and likely into March 2025.)
No. Two things strike me. First, the last time I felt like this at the end of an Illini football campaign was on January 2, 1990. I was living in a little house on East John Street in the home stretch of grad school. That season the Bill McCartney-coached Buffs (which ended up at #4) embarrassed us in Boulder in September on national TV, and then we lost a heartbreaker to Michigan (which ended up at #7) at home in what was the battle for the BT title that year. (I sat ~ at the goal line in the east balcony on an unseasonably warm Veterans Day late afternoon for that one.) We beat Virginia (#16) in the Citrus Bowl on New Year's Day and finished 10-2 (#10 in the nation.) We had what appeared to be an excellent, seasoned head coach who had turned us around in merely two seasons in part because of the dumb luck of landing Jeff George after Purdue adopted an option offense (Texas giveth by firing Fred Akers, who moved to Purdue in 1987; Texas taketh away in 1991 by hiring Mackovic.) The future looked bright. I wore shades.
Anyway: January 2, 1990. I had just turned 24 and life, with all its sparkling promise and none of its obscured disappointments, stretched out before me. I turned 59 last week and much of what I'm likely to enjoy in this life (and I've been fortunate to enjoy great, quiet riches) is in the rearview mirror.
That's how long it has been. Thirty-five years. And I gotta tell you: this feels MUCH better than January 2, 1990 felt. More sustainable, richer, and more satisfying because of the perspective that an accumulation of years affords and who the man at the helm is and has become. And, more importantly, it feels much warmer and richer because of all of you here on the Board. I watched us prevail yesterday with a dear Illini brother whom I met on this Board and who has suffered through a handful more heartbreaking Illini seasons than I have. His friendship in itself is a gift beyond reckoning. Dan, and all of you, enabled it, and at a time when I was near the bottom of this life.
The second thing that strikes me: how serenely happy I am for all of you here on the Board and, more importantly, for the young gladiators who gave everything on the field this year, and those who coached and supported them. How happy I am for how happy all of you are. How nearly all of us expected nothing in August (please, Lord, let us reach 0.500 and play on a Thursday evening in Detroit on ESPNU in mid-December), and yet received everything from these boys.
And then, well, yeah... there were those helmets yesterday.
I will take to my deathbed the desperate thrill of sitting in SHI Stadium and watching us break the huddle on 4th and 13 with seconds remaining and absolutely no hope of a win over Rutgers. The wind had been brisk, cold and swirling all day. The oblique, late-afternoon November sunlight cast sharp, crepuscular rays through low-slung cumulus clouds the sizes of small islands, passing grandly and low above the field under a brilliant, azure canopy. It was beautiful and heartbreaking. I literally thought to myself in that moment as I felt the pit in my stomach: "This is the price of caring so much." The air of November, I swear I remember it that way.
All was lost. And then, in a moment, it wasn't.
Those boys gave that to us and to themselves and I shall never forget how it all felt. This season front to back, and that ineffable moment in New Jersey when Pat turned the corner with six seconds remaining and nothing but open space separating him and Victory Illinois Varsity.
My 20-year-old daughter was in our kitchen on my birthday last week and noticed on my fridge the 3-D postcard the Alumni Association sent this fall portraying Memorial Stadium in the '20s. "That's so beautiful, Dad," she exclaimed. "Where is it?" I explained. I pointed out the Colonnades and explained the meaning of "Memorial" Stadium. She's a junior at Virginia Tech. At the head of its expansive quad, called the Drillfield, is a stirring monument to fallen soldiers who were VT students. It's similar to our Colonnades, and it's called the Pylons. There are eight of them symbolizing Brotherhood, Honor, Leadership, Sacrifice, Service, Loyalty, Duty, and the university's motto, Ut Prosim ("That I May Serve"). So she really understood Memorial Stadium, and in that moment the decades separating us collapsed and we bonded just a wee bit more.
I pointed out the space in front of the grand north entrance to the stadium, where IMPE would eventually be built in the '60s; and the large parade ground across Peabody Drive where in the late '50s Snyder and Scott Halls, my homes for four years as an undergrad, affording me a view through Memorial Stadium to the roof of that global architectural gem, Assembly Hall, would be built.
"That was my home, sweetheart," I said. But I was mistaken. That IS my home. And it will ever be thus until I return to dust.
We love no other. Thanks to our glorious team. Thanks to all of you for hanging out here in the family room of our Illini lives. Happy 2025. It's going to be as wonderful in all its imperfect facets as each of us are. We'll make it so.
Eloquent, articulate, perfect.
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