What a time to be alive.
Or…an Illini fan, I guess. This time last week, we were about to close the books on another sub-par basketball season, where failing to qualify for the NCAA seems like the new normal. For the Fighting Illini football team, the hiring of interim head coach Bill Cubit seemed to mire the team in a state of stagnation from which we couldn’t escape until his confusing two-year contract was up. For an Illini fan a week ago, all hope was pretty much lost.
Fast forward to present day and the Illini sports world has been turned upside down (just like Dick Vitale). All of a sudden, the basketball team is halfway to winning the Big Ten Tournament and qualifying for the NCAA Tournament, which probably won’t happen but in theory is an exciting way to end the season. All of a sudden, they’re not collapsing in the second half, but rather are playing a full 40 minutes of basketball, and doing it well. Better late than never, I suppose.
What’s more emphatic than the basketball team’s turnaround this past week, however, is the monumental shift in attitude that accompanied the announcement that Bill Cubit would not be retained as head coach of the Illini football team, and that former Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Lovie Smith would be hired as his replacement.
For years and years, we’ve heard the arguments against landing a big-name coach. Given the sports climate in C-U, there’s just no reason for a coach to come here if they have other options, so it would seem.
Shaka Smart chose to stay at VCU rather than coach our basketball team, and football head coaching candidates seemed even harder to find after the firing of Tim Beckman this Fall. The majority of Illini fans had either lost interest or expected us to hire another underwhelming coach from the MAC (Mid-American Conference) in hopes of finding a cheap diamond-in-the-rough.
But no, that’s not how it worked out at all. For once, Illini Athletics surprised us. In a good way. I’m not sure I want to to know exactly how he did it, but somehow, new Athletic Director Josh Whitman found a way to light a fire under a dormant fan base in a matter of hours last Saturday, suddenly energizing thousands with an optimism that had been lacking for nearly a decade, with the hiring of one coach.
Don’t get me wrong – I feel bad for Bill Cubit. Nothing can compare to the terrible feeling of career instability, and I’m sure having the new Athletic Director fire him on his first day on the job was awful and unexpected – but Cubit also didn’t inspire fans to purchase over 2,000 season tickets when it was announced that he would be hired. In fact, he inspired more gripes than anything else, and a sense that our Athletic Department was incompetent and destined for failure.
Perhaps the biggest thing that the hiring of Lovie proves, however, is that Illinois’ formidable fanbase is alive again. I mean, shit – we have an enrollment of over 44,000 students and our alumni base is massive and rapidly expanding, so why is it hard to find people on campus who want to go to a football game on a Saturday afternoon? What Josh Whitman has done is let us know that he’s serious about Illini sports. He wants to be a national power as bad as I, a lifelong Illini fan and University of Illinois alumni, seem to want it, and that’s the most I can ask for.
Sure, this hiring one coach who hasn’t coached any games yet isn’t a cure-all. We’re still the perpetual underdog, and that won’t change until we become a consistent Big Ten threat. But now, at least, there will be 2,000 more people at every game, we probably won’t get ripped by Deadspin in the near future, and people aren’t afraid to wear Illini football t-shirts in public any more.
Hell, Lovie got a standing ovation at the Illini Union, Esquire and Papa Del’s on Monday night – can you imagine that happening for Bill Cubit or Tim Beckman? I can’t. Can you imagine student climbing over each other to try to get a selfie with either of those two? I can’t imagine that, either.
Maybe the times are changing, and maybe they aren’t, but I’m a hell of a lot more excited for Illini sports than I was last week. Something about the combination of Wes Lunt and a former NFL head coach just gets me going. I might even buy my season tickets right now, which is something I didn’t think I’d be able to say about Illini football for 20 years.
Plus, the basketball team is going to crush Purdue today and will definitely continue their quest to March Madness – well, at least one can dream. Basketball is an entirely different issue. Does anyone know if Tom Thibodeau has any plans for the future? Maybe AD Whitman can have a chat with him, too.