If Illinois Adopts This Mascot I'm Going To Chain Myself To Nothing
Being the Illini guy sucks for a lot of reasons. We stink at pretty much everything and there’s literally never been a better time to a sports fan. Did you see this shit on Saturday?
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We got guys punching glass boxes. Coaches screaming at campus law enforcement. A controversial charge call and a good old fashioned court storming.
That’s my kind of action and it’s been missing in Champaign for over 10 years now. In fact the magic is so gone you could argue it never existed. Not to get too philosophical but if you suck that bad for that long, you start to forfeit historical bragging rights. Like yeah I’m sure Red Grange galloped all over Michigan 93 years ago but do you really think that matters when we lose by 39 to Purdue? When you can’t beat Indiana? When Northwestern drags you all over the field year after year?
Of course it still matters. Red Grange was a legend (turn 4k settings on):
I’m getting away from my point which is this – being an Illini fan is extra tough right now. We’re not at a crossroads, we’re on a cliff and it’s windy. At any point in time we could all plummet into not caring about college sports ever again aka The Worst Day Of My Life. Sounds scary but we’re not far away. The football team got outscored by 178 points in 9 Big Ten games this year and that includes 2 wins. If you only factor the losses, Illinois lost Conference games on average by 32 points.
32 fucking points.
Anyways, the mascot:
Burn it to the ground. The play of words is cute, because The Alma Mater is a very real thing I document HERE
But that’s not enough to alter the course of the sports marketing department for the next 50+ years. We don’t need Otter merchandise and families certainly don’t need another reason to drag their snot nosed kids to the State Farm Center 300 level. If you want to capture fan engagement, start illegally playing better football players and stop losing basketball games at home to Penn State.
Until that happens, change nothing. And when it does happen, do whatever. But really just know the only thing that matters is giving fans a reason to crack a beer on Saturday mornings September thru December.
PS – Chief Illiniwek is a Symbol not a Mascot. It’s nuanced, but the point is Chief never jumped around during the game and handed out candy. The people in charge took it EXTREMELY serious. I tried out for a day in 2005 and it was fucking impossible. I’ve got the ankles of a corpse and no where near the flexibility the routine demands. It’s a shame Chief’s gone forever.