I Wrote a Book!

Over three decades of Illini basketball fandom spills onto the page.

In the fall of 2002, I was an aspiring journalist writing for Urbana High School’s student newspaper The Echo. Desperate to make a splash, I pondered how to most impress my teacher, Ms. Helm, and the upperclassmen who ran the joint.

Eureka! I thought to myself. I’ll land a Barbara Walters-esque interview!

But who? I brainstormed a list of local celebrities with name recognition. Judy Fraser, the iconic weather reporter for WCIA? Mike from This Is It Furniture, who gave out a free onion with each mattress purchase?

Luminaries in their own right, to be sure. But, there was an even bigger kahuna out there, an unassailable public figure with the highest possible Q rating: Bill Self.

It was an obvious choice. I was a rabid Illini basketball fan, and we just so happened to have the coolest coach in college hoops leading our program. A quick email to Kent Brown, the Sports Information Director in the athletic department, landed me an interview that would forever change the trajectory of my professional life.

Well, not exactly.

While I went on to enjoy three more years at The Echo and majored in News-Editorial Journalism at the University of Illinois, my career as a writer was shelved in favor of broadcasting.

Quite simply, I enjoyed talking more than typing. Nearly a decade at ESPN 93.5 with the Tay & J Show, Tay & Carp, and the terrestrial-radio version of The 200 Level helped me hone my gift of gab. The lack of on-field and on-court successes for Illini athletics stifled any further enthusiasm; when the mics clicked off, so too did my interest in delving deeper into Illinois’ revenue sports teams.

A shame, too. As a younger kid, I dreamed of either A) becoming a rock star, or B) becoming the next Loren Tate (an especially futile endeavor, as there will never be another Loren Tate). I had a passion for writing, I had a passion for Illini basketball . . . yet, the two were only intermittently paired for a few short years while I was in high school.

Still, I had the bug. Finally, in March 2024, I felt compelled to start writing in earnest. Illinois basketball helped matters, going on an absolute heater during the month with their two losses coming to Purdue and UConn (who met in the national title). There was a groundswell of excitement among the fan base, and the podcast alone wasn’t satisfying my all-consuming obsession for the Illini.

Fifteen years after writing my last story for a journalism class, I fired up my own Substack page, grabbed a cup of coffee, and started typing about what I know best: Illinois basketball.

That’s the cardinal rule of writing, after all: write what you know. Attributed to Mark Twain, that advice rang especially true as I shared in the joy of a March to remember with the vast community of Illini fans.

Some of my earliest memories center around this program. It began with Lou Henson’s post-Flyin’ Illini 1990s teams - good, not great, but featuring enough studs and making enough tournaments to reel in a young fan like myself. More often than not, our family’s dinner conversations circled back to Illinois basketball. Trips to the Assembly Hall, soundtracked by the dulcet tones of Turpin and Tate on WDWS, brought some much-needed excitement into those long Midwestern winters.

I lived and breathed all things Illini basketball. Some kids watched cartoons on Saturday mornings; I fired up VHS recordings of classic games like Nick Anderson’s buzzer beater at Indiana. Some kids read Berenstain Bears books in bed before going to sleep; I read game programs and media guides.

Even in the lean years of the 2010s, my passion for Illini basketball didn’t vanish. Rather, it entered a period of hibernation, subsisting on past memories while awaiting the deep thaw of mediocre basketball. With the arrival of Brad Underwood, Ayo Dosunmu, and Kofi Cockburn, the long-dormant fandom awoke from its slumber. I was back and fully invested.

After the March 2024 run, one of the most exciting months of my Illini fandom, I was feeling particularly grateful. I wanted to somehow capture everything this program has meant to me, my family, my friends, and the fan base at large.

What better way to do that than a book?

When summer vacation hit on May 31, I pondered how to proceed. How would I structure it? Would I focus on specific seasons, coaching tenures, players? Would I include anything about Illini football? (Ha! That idea was quickly shelved.)

The first thing I wrote about was the 2000-01 team, Bill Self’s first season in Champaign. Of all the years I’ve followed Illinois basketball, few had the sheer number of massive wins and intoxicating energy of that one. It was my first taste of what it’s like to have an elite basketball program in my own backyard, and I loved every minute of it . . . right up through the crushing loss to Arizona in the Elite Eight.

From there, I went back to the early 1990s, my first memories as a fan while Henson struggled to regain momentum after the Bruce Pearl scandal. Through the years I went, writing each and every day through the month of June.

When all was said and done, I had a complete book - 286 pages, 76,000 words, a tome of the last three decades of Illini basketball.

If someone asked, “What does success look like?” when it comes to this book, I wouldn’t respond with a sales number. I think it will find its audience - there is a dearth of written material about Illinois sports, as a quick Amazon search will confirm. But, I also don’t expect any appearances on the New York Times’ Bestseller list.

To me, success looks like this: other Illini fans reliving their experiences while reading about mine. Throughout the book, I write not only about the games themselves, but where I was, who I was with, how I felt, and a myriad of other details. In sharing an early proof copy with my dad, it was validating to hear him bring up specific memories of his own.

In a classic episode of The Sopranos, Tony tells Paulie Walnuts, “'Remember when' is the lowest form of conversation.” Sometimes, I tend to agree with this. Waxing nostalgic has its limits; doing so too much can take one’s focus off the present.

But, as I write in the last chapter of the book:

Sports fandom is a journey with no real end point. Each season is a brand new story onto itself, another chapter in a book being written in perpetuity. Along this journey, though, certain threads remain constant, many of them instilled at a young age from family and passed from one generation to the next. Some of my earliest memories came from Illinois basketball, and well into my adulthood, it’s still providing me with moments I’ll cherish as long as I’m around.

I’m grateful for those memories. I’m grateful to have shared them with those I’m closest to. I’m grateful to have listeners who allow me to be a part of the Illinois sports conversation, and now, prospective readers interested in my perspective of this program’s recent history.

Hunter S. Thompson famously wrote, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.” I hope this book allows Illini fans the opportunity to do just that.