Back In A Week

It's a tradition around here. When I'm going to be out of town, I put up a Gone Fishin' sign even though I'm not fishing. I just want to let people know not to check the site for the next week because there won't be anything new.

Now, that might be challenged if the golf team makes a run at La Costa. I'm not covering the NCAAs this year – it's my 20th anniversary and my wife and I are taking a trip – but if the boys make match play again and then make a run, I'm going to want to write something about it. If that happens, yes, I'll probably be up late in the lobby of the hotel while my wife is asleep, writing about what happened.

But short of that, this space will be blank for the next week. We're re-creating our honeymoon (kind of), so I'll be out there wandering around. We're not the "go to one place and stay there for a week" kind of people (not even on our honeymoon 20 years ago), so we'll be out there... exploring.

Now, if this were to be a full re-creation of our honeymoon, we're gonna need the top football commit in a decade to verbal to us. Juice Williams picked Illinois the day we got married in 2005. So next Wednesday, look for an incredible in-state player to pick Illinois (come on, Mack Sutter or JC Anderson, I know you want to). That way we can keep up the "on years that end with a 5, an incredible in-state player picks Illinois on May 28th" tradition.

(If you're curious, no players picked Illinois on May 28, 2015, our tenth anniversary, so this really isn't a thing. In early May of 2015, Simon Cvijanovic had just tweeted his allegations and the investigation had begun. I don't think any players in the 2016 class picked Illinois in those next few months. Recruiting was essentially non-existent for a year. And that was the reason 15 of the 22 freshmen in the 2017 class started at least one game.)

We will return from our trip on Sunday, June 1st, but with the opening football game moved to Friday, August 29th, June 1st is now 89 days from the opener. Which means I need to decide what I'm doing with The 90 Illini by Saturday, May 31st (if I'm doing it at all). I guess I'll have a lot of time on this trip to think about that while staring at beautiful things in nature. Maybe it will come to me.

For the next week, though, I’m on vacation. Consider this my out-of-the-office email. If you need anything, please contact Tyler in the Chicago office or Brumby in the Minnesota office (actually, Brumby is fully invested in the T-Wolves so good luck getting through to him). I’ll be back in a week.

(Or maybe mid-week if we do something crazy at La Costa.)