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Robert, I love your style, and have always respected your humility and willingness to show your vulnerability. Regarding you being so hurt about the comments that go against your vaccine bias in the “Check Back Tomorrow” article, those were from my brother and me (I came to his defense). There are two things I’d like to address. (1) That article wasn’t a sports article so a person should have the liberty to post a comment that is not directly related to Illini sports in the comment section. I wouldn’t have done so myself, but I can understand someone doing so. I wouldn’t have because I don’t think there is anything that can be accomplished as both sides are dug in on their positions. (2) Most people that follow the news associate “died suddenly” these days to the COVID vaccine. Therefore, in my opinion, I think a reasonable person should expect speculation around someone’s sudden death. I would find that inappropriate if it was the sudden death of someone very close to you (but as you even stated in the article, it wasn’t someone very close to you). Instead, your reaction to my brother’s comments were, in my opinion, met with shock, and disgust, which I think made you post hastily and emotionally. This shouldn’t surprise most of you, but there is a huge chunk of this country that never got the vaccine for what they consider to be paramount reasons and never will. I won’t elaborate on those because that isn’t the point of this comment.

I post this at further risk of being isolated and ostracized from what is at least a vocal minority on Illiniboard - those that look down on others that are anti-COVID vaccination, those that throw the word “Christian” around as a derogatory term, those that label anti-COVID vaccine proponents as ignorant, and those that have traditional conservative Christian values as something to look down upon.

I have considered cancelling my subscription due to the hatred my brother and I received from some of you. I know that would make a lot of you happy. For now, I am not cancelling because I like Robert’s unique content, and like him as a person so I want to support him doing what he loves to do. I look forward to Robert’s coverage of what I hope is a magical March tourney run and hopefully open media availability of Spring Camp.