The day has come
We have arrived.
Monday, March 20, 2017. I was on spring break during my sophomore year at the University of Illinois. No big vacations planned that year with my parents.
Second-year athletic director Josh Whitman fired John Groce the prior week, but Illinois is still competing in the NIT under the leadership of Jamall Walker. Illinois is set to play Boise State that night at State Farm Center in the NIT second round (they beat Valpo the previous week). It didn’t take much to convince my parents to drive down to Champaign with me from our home in the northwest suburbs so I could be in the basketball band that night — and sit in on the new head coach’s introductory press conference in the afternoon.
So there we are inside State Farm Center. I’m sitting in one of rows of chairs set up for the media, covering the presser for The Daily Illini (in my final months before moving on to The Champaign Room). My parents are sitting in the club seats watching the news conference.
I can’t imagine there were more than a few dozen people there watching Brad Underwood’s introductory press conference. And could you blame them? The program was in ruins.