March 08--Lovie Smith has come to Champaign. As an unflinchingly proud graduate of a school that helped me find myself, I recognize this day as a great one. Not good -- great.
Keeping one's ear to the ground of the Illinois faithful, one can only describe the group as "galvanized." For months and months, for years and years, that group has been shrouded in a series of embarrassments, ineptitude and scandal. A quick summation of all three? Since 2009, only three of the 65 power-conference teams have failed to reach the Sweet 16 in men's basketball or win eight games in football: Colorado, Wake Forest and Illinois.
Smith, an 11-year NFL head coach, is a teacher. Or he sure seems like one. You'd be hard-pressed to find a player who doesn't like this man who has coached in some capacity since 1980, and even harder-pressed to find anyone who would say it publicly. He may not tickle the media's funny bone or ooze charisma -- "Wes is our quarterback" to be heard shortly -- but the man coaches.
As athletic director Josh Whitman referenced at Monday's introductory news conference, four locations above all know of Smith's prowess: Chicago, St. Louis, Texas and Florida. Those places are also football-relevant.
"(Teaching) is what made the job so attractive to me, the feeling that I can do that," Smith said Monday. "When you can have the most impact on young men's lives is during that time, when they're leaving high school and coming to college. I feel like I'm a teacher. And when I look for coaches for my staff, I'm looking for stern teachers.
"That's the perfect age to get them to come buy in, the perfect age to see the impact you're having on their lives. Once you get to the NFL, a lot has already been done and been in place. Who you are has been established. Having a chance to impact lives like that, you have to jump on board."
My college roommate was the president of the student fan club, Illini Pride, in 2008-09. Our apartment was lined with dozens of boxes filled with hundreds of navy shirts. It was a running joke that entire year, and I'm not sure where those shirts currently reside, but I know what they could have been used for since we graduated: kindling. Every game since the shocking Rose Bowl run in 2007 is pre-soaked with a feeling of dread and irrelevance. It has been a series of unfortunate events, Lemony Snicket draped in orange and blue. And it shouldn't be that way.
Tim Beckman was an embarrassment. He referenced postgame lasagna parties like some sophomoric high school coach, Artie Bucco with a whistle. He called in to WSCR-AM 670 on Feb. 4, 2015, and said the following: "I'm asking for help. I didn't go after the media one bit. I was just saying if we could all be in this together, that's all I said. Let's be in this thing together. Let's build this thing together into a championship program. Let's talk as much as we can on trying to build it together."
Media savvy or aware, he was not. His sideline dipping was infinitely more interesting than his on-field maneuvering. He went 12-25 and won four conference games in three years. He was an uninspired hire that excited exactly nobody, and his tenure dissolved into a scandal that found him accused of physically and mentally abusing players. Good times, indeed.
Bill Cubit was Beckman's top recruiter and assistant, yet wasn't implicated in any reports and took over as head coach seven days before last year's opener. There is no beef with Cubit, just appreciation. All you can do is commend the job he did, the heart an undermanned team showed amid terrible circumstances. By all accounts, he seems like a tremendous guy. But he's a smart guy too. When the anger wears off, he will certainly understand this borderline-unanimous upgrade.
To that point, I've wondered for a long time, as a Chicago kid, why downstate Illinois fans so vehemently dismissed the big city. Why the phrase "Chicago media" carried the weight of a hateful curse, not a mainstream opportunity. This time, with this hire, I opened my ears to why that could be so.
ESPN's David Kaplan, when news of Smith's imminent hiring was first gaining steam Saturday, made his views known on Twitter. Phrases such as "weak hire" and "no impact" and "condescending" and "low charisma" and "desperate" were used to describe Smith. Tweets such as "(Illinois has) gotten more coverage today for reportedly hiring a mediocre coach than they have in the past decade" were directed at the school.
Fair points were made, assuredly. But goading the fan base only gave credence to the downstate insecurity and distrust. Kaplan didn't view the Illinois fan base as formidable enough to engage because, frankly, it has taken on more water than the Titanic in recent years.
The venerable Steve Rosenbloom, a fellow Tribune employee whose snark I often enjoy, wrote Monday morning about Smith's hiring being both "cute" and "mediocre." He ended his piece with the following: "And here we are again. And of course some people think this is the time the Illini get it right. Finally. At last. That's just so cute." More dismissive potshots from the big city.
I, however, take Rosenbloom's shot as a veiled compliment to Illinois. Reading between the lines a bit, he -- who, like most of the city's conversation shapers, has mostly ignored the Illini -- seems to think the program is better than the coach it hired. As primary arguing points, he referenced Smith's 89-87 NFL record and loss in Super Bowl XLI. This is Illinois football. You lost me at "NFL" and "Super Bowl."
Illinois athletics are not better than Lovie Smith; that's the crux of the excitement. Lovie Smith is better than Illinois. He is better than a program that has won more than eight games once since 2001. Yet against all odds -- and in the shadows of the Mount Rushmore of Cubit, Beckman, Zook and Turner -- he chose Illinois.
Dissenters be damned. For the first time in years, the Illinois fan base has mobilized. It's relevant again. And that, you could say, is the cutest byproduct of all.
rmayor@tribpub.com
