Good News
-Illini athlete Daniel Romanchuk won his second Boston Marathon this week, cementing his status as an absolute legend.
-Tatyana McFadden, another C-U superathlete, was featured in this awesome video from Nike about her (frankly incredible) training.
-Illini basketball landed another commitment this week from ZZ Clark, younger brother of Skyy Clark, who also committed to Illinois this month. ZZ’s still un-rated by the largest recruiting services, and doesn’t graduate until 2024, but is undeniably a solid pick-up for Brad Underwood.
In honor, here is a pair of Clarks:
-We stan our Hyatt-heir-king. Finally a liberal politician who knows how to punch back, lmaooooooooooooo.
-The IL-13 primary is heating up, which I guess isn’t explicitly good news. The gloves are starting to come off on social media, though, which is sure to be entertaining. Here’s one candidate (David Palmer), potentially alluding to another candidate (Nikki Budzinski) who moved to Springfield from Chicagoland to run for IL-13.
Not sure who wins this primary, and either candidate will be better than Rod Davis, but it looks like one candidate seems to use social media better than the other. We’re in for a fun political season folks.
Also, the third candidate for IL-13, Ellis Taylor, was disqualified via petition challenge last week:
Bad News
-This is more bittersweet news than explicitly bad news, but Kofi is gone. Sad.
Kofi took his official visit to Illinois for one of the worst Illini basketball losses in modern memory:
…and still decided to come to Illinois and be part of the modern renaissance, restoring Illinois’ place in the national college basketball conversation. For that, every Illini fan should remember him fondly.
Who could forget:
For a full breakdown of the decision, including a look at Kofi’s pro prospects, listen to the newest episode of The 200 Level.
-Something weird may be going on with Ebertfest. On Thursday morning, this article was released by the News-Gazette. At first glance, it looks like a good preview of an awesome community event happening this weekend. As of 11 am on Friday, the Gazette hasn’t posted the article to its Facebook or Twitter pages (this will be important later).
Buried in the article, in paragraph number 18 (eighteen!), is this important piece of information:
Del Toro was the top-billed headliner for the Festival. So, surely Ebertfest has made an announcement about the cancellation of their headliner, right?
As of 11 am on Friday, they haven’t Tweeted or posted on Facebook for a week! As of 11 am, EbertFest.com still lists Guillermo del Toro as a special guest at the festival:
…seems strange at best to not disclose this on public channels before the fest kicks off. Ebertfest is a great asset for our community, and I hope they have a great weekend, but can you imagine if a music festival did this for a headliner?
Good Reads
Frankly, you're paying for these political ads (The News-Gazette)
‘They are promoting a stereotype’: Illinois schools pushed to retire native mascots (Illinois Newsroom)
Leslie David Baker and Kate Flannery from The Office will be at Foellinger next week (Smile Politely)
Champaign PD announces new Chief and partnership with University of Illinois (Illinois Newsroom)
Danville breaks ground on new casino hoping to boost local economy (Illinois Newsroom)
Terrell Jermaine Starr on life and war in Ukraine (The 21st)
Good Pods
Good Listens
Local:
New video from Chase Baby:
Non-local:
Everyone be safe an have a good weekend. C-U soon.