The Chicago Illini?

I am a sports fan. I feel no shame in that. My main sport is baseball. I love the game and care about its health. I have always been a Cubs fan and will be until the day I die. Football, would be second on my list and the local team, the Bears are my favorites. Basketball has always been third or back in the 80’s during the days of the Black Hawk’s I would say basketball was fourth in my book.

I have grown to enjoy the game more and more and it probably was due to Michael Jordan. Once he came to town a bunch of borderline NBA fans became hardcore. I still follow the Bulls and as I stated in a previous blog, think they are on to something. However, I have always preferred college buckets to the pro game. In the college game they play team ball, the ref’s actually call traveling and the players all play defense. I grew up in the 80’s and back then De Paul was the team. I was a huge fan. Mark Aguirre, Terry Cummings, Skip Dillard, and Teddy Grubbs were players I grew up rooting for. The team was always ranked high going into the tournament only to lose early when it counted. Still though after all these years they are my team.

The De Paul program has not seen those glory in a long time. Currently Illinois is the number one team in the country. This has caused Chicago to go Illini crazy. I am truly happy for the team and hope they win it all. However, it would not break my heart if they lost in the first round either.

I am not going to kid others, and myself by pretending to be a fan of this team. Whenever a team becomes successful all the fair weather fans come out of the woodwork. To root for a team only when they are winning is lame. It says a lot about someone’s character to only root for the team when they are on top. As a Cub fan, I see these wanabe fans all the time and they make me want to puke. When the Cubs do win the World Series, I will enjoy on a level that the bandwagon jumpers will never understand.

These Illini frontrunners are now popping up all over the place. Illini gear is being sold everywhere. I saw some Illinois shirts for sale at Walgreen’s the other day. First off while Chicago is in Illinois, the college is located in Champaign. That is 200 miles away from Chicago. Indianapolis is just as close to us. Champaign is a two-horse one stop light town. I would rather go to Nebraska than go back and visit Champaign. Now, if you go to school there or went there you have every right to cheer the team. However, to call the Illini a Chicago team is ludicrous.

I should admit right off that I have my own issues with Illinois. For years De Paul has wanted to schedule Illinois but they won’t. The give some bullshit reason but I am sure it has to do with the fact that Illinois likes having the Chicago market and why risk losing any of it to De Paul. The Illini would kick De Paul’s ass but that does not seem to matter to the powers that be. So, because of this when Illinois lost this weekend I was not that upset over it. This team is over rated and there is no way they are going to win the tournament. The frontrunners will all be heart broken when that happens.

Again, I am not actively rooting against them. Illinois is still my favorite team in the big ten. However, Chicago should not be Illini territory. De Paul, Loyola, UIC, Chicago St, hell even Northwestern have more ties to the city than the Illini. With that said I will say go Illinois but I won’t shout it.