Both Sides Now

I swear I've written this article before. Or, at least, I've written an article with this title before. But I can't find it anywhere in the archive. So maybe I didn't?

Either way, that's the title of this article. I'm referencing one of my favorite songs of all time: Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell. I can't think of many songs that speak to life like this song does. If I need to frame the world, I listen to this song.

And it's been on my mind after attending the men's game on Saturday and the women's game on Sunday. It's now nearly 11:00 pm on Monday evening as I start this and, after thinking about this all day, I think I'm finally ready to write it. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I am.

I'll just start with some lyrics.

Rows and floes of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

That sets the scene fairly well, I think. Clouds can be "what does that one look like?" as you lay on your back with a loved one in a park and clouds can be "my flight was canceled due to fog and I won't be able to make it." But it's cloud illusions we recall.

The easy direction to take this – and the reason I've been struggling with this article all day – is to make a simple connection to our two basketball programs. One team is losing when it should be winning. The other team is winning when it should be losing. One is caught in a cloud, the other is watching the clouds roll by. Two more paragraphs about that and we're done here.

But that hasn't been my feeling. I truly think I would have written this article if the men's team won on Saturday and the women's team lost on Sunday. My point here isn't even "one team has found a way to win through injuries and the other has not." Throw out the wins and losses for a moment and meet me on the other side of the clouds.

I should probably start at home. When my wife and I moved to Champaign five years ago, we did so as empty-nesters. Our kids are all adults. Like, adult adults. Our youngest will be 30 this summer.

That phase of life arrived so quickly. When we got married nearly 20 years ago, her boys were 13, 11, and 9. So for me, parenting went by in a flash and then we moved on to this new phase of life. And then, during that phase of life, we left the St. Louis area for the first time as adults (her first time away from STL since the age of 12, me since I graduated and left Champaign in 1996). There are empty-nesters, and then there are empty-nesters who say "we're out of here, kids" and move 2.5 hours away from them.

So that left us with an interesting dynamic in Champaign. My wife travels for her job, and I travel a fair bit as well (I'll leave for Wisconsin as soon as I finish this article tomorrow morning), which means there are times we don't see each other very much. From late August until the end of March, I have a game to cover nearly every weekend. Thinking out loud here as I type this out, I think there have only been four weekends since August where I haven't had a basketball or football game to cover - the two bye weeks for football plus the first weekend in December and the first weekend in January (where we were still in Florida and watched the Oregon and Washington games on TV).

I'm telling you all of this as a long answer to this question I've gotten a lot: "Why don't you cover more women's basketball games?" I just want you to picture what that's like for my wife. She's traveled all week for work. She's home and wants to do something or maybe go somewhere. And I say "Saturday night I have to cover the Michigan State game and then Sunday I'm gonna go to the women's game." All before she has to travel again this week for work.

I'm not saying that so you'll feel sorry for us. We make an effort to make time. On Sunday we did lunch at Red Robin (with a great conversation) before a Costco trip and a HomeGoods trip and then back home. We had just enough time to watch a documentary we'd been wanting to watch (the one on Max about the hiker in Florida they couldn't identify) before I had to leave for the women's game.

It was the great conversation at Red Robin that had me in a certain (great) mood when walking into the women's game. We had one of those "in the end, it's just you and me against the world" conversations and I was ready to conquer anything. And I needed that after the depression of the "we missed our final 19 shots" game on Saturday night (and the frustration at how the banner ceremony was botched).

I tell you all of that to say that I walked into the building with a different perspective. The words I'm typing here are built on the foundation of a wife who says "I'm good with us not being able to do much on any single weekend from August through March because this is your dream and I want you to realize it." When the burden of covering a disappointing team gets heavy – not just having to write about frustrating losses but also dealing with all of the white hot hate everywhere – I'll always have that as my foundation.

And so then what I experienced was... magical. Exactly what I needed. As I said above, you might be expecting "the women's team has figured out what the men's team has not" here, but that wasn't my takeaway. My takeaway on Sunday was the purity.

I've looked at (hoop) from both sides now.

Let's start at the end. The Illini players stuck around to sign autographs. And stuck around and stuck around and stuck around. Kendall Bostic was still out there, 27 minutes after the game ended, and this was the line to get her autograph/take a picture with her:

And it wasn't just her. She had the longest line by far, but the other players signed autograph after autograph. Every player went out of their way to make themselves available. Before that lined formed for Kendall (she was in the north stands singing autographs), this was the scene with the other players and the fans after the game:

But please don't think my point here is "the women's players sign autographs and the men's players don't." It is not. Stay with me. I'm talking about something else.

That postgame connection with the fans was visible during the game as well. It's just a different environment. Not better, not worse, just different. There were 15,500 fans on Saturday and "only" 5,900 on Sunday but that's not why I saw college basketball from both sides. Maybe I can best describe this with McNuggets.

Both teams do the McNuggets promotion. Two missed free throws from the opponent = free Chicken McNuggets the next day. So if you thought my point here was going to be "the men's game is so commercialized with McDonald's promotions while the women's game was just pure basketball", nope, that's not it either. The "event" plays out in the same ways.

The difference, plain and simple, was the lack of angst. The absence of rage. I mean, there was rage – Nebraska's women's coach has some Fran McCaffery tendencies and it took a lot of restraint from the officials to not T her up – but the overall mood in the arena was "let's do this, ladies" and not "don't you dare make a mistake."

The support, both from the crowd and from the bench, was inspiring. No, it wasn't even half as loud as the men's game, and yes, a massive arena like that can echo when the 200-level is mostly empty. But I'm talking about support, not noise, and it was palpable.

I mean, look at this photo of the Illini bench:

Now look at the faces in the back. Now think about what it might feel like to be in a room with that many smiling, happy people. Wins and losses? Sure, that matters.

But have you seen how much fun this can be?

FUCK-TOM-IZ-ZO
(clap clap clapclapclap)
FUCK-TOM-IZ-ZO
(clap clap clapclapclap)

That's how the game started for me on Saturday night. The teams come out, Brad Underwood and Tom Izzo are shaking hands and smiling, and Krush is sending Tom Izzo a message. I don't understand the message, and the message makes me embarrassed to wear my Illini gear around town, but Krush is sending Tom Izzo a message.

It didn't stop there. It was constant throughout the game. Izzo is short. Tre Holloman's hairline is receding. Their players are ugly, they're an embarrassment, on and on and on and on.

And, once we started losing late in the game, the eye of Sauron turned towards our bench. It didn't come in the form of chants. These were just individual callouts. Instructions on our shot selection and, ahem, opinions on whether the coaching cost us this game. It's just this constant speaker with anger blaring and it has to be pointed at someone so as soon as we start losing, spin it to the right.

Look, this is just college sports now. There's no putting the Barstool back in the tube. My kids – who will all be in their 30's as of August, have you heard? – all come down on that side of sports fandom. They're surrounded by it, their group texts are filled with it, so I couldn't possibly sound older to them when I tell them how much the crassness turns me off. Everyone voted (well, I don't think I got a vote) and this is how we want college basketball to be.

But I'm being so descriptive here in hopes that you can understand the difference between the two environments. In the same building, 21 hours apart, two wildly different experiences. One, not joking, I would not take my mother to. And another where I can't wait to bring my granddaughter.

The worst part of it? I love a riled-up home crowd. I loved it when I was in Krush and I love it today. Just last month I wrote this post about the there-might-be-a-fight-soon crowd at the Citrus Bowl. The Illini fans screaming "sit your ass down, Beamer"? Loved it. If I didn't have a credential around my neck, I might have joined them.

Because it was real. Because it was "this is our team and we absolutely have their back." Hell, on Sunday, Shauna Green got into it with the Nebraska head coach. I love every part of that. I'm not asking for everyone to sit in a circle and hold hands.

I'm saying that I attended two games in the same arena 21 hours apart. The first environment was 100% noxious (and that had nothing to do with the game; we were leading for 75% of it). The second environment was wholesome and pure (and that had nothing to do with the game; we were trailing at halftime). That's not on Orange Krush (they were represented at both games). That's not pointed at anyone in particular. I'm simply speaking of the crowds.

I guess I really don't know crowds at all.

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say, "I love you, " right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

Oh, but now old friends, they're acting strange
And they shake their heads and they tell me that I've changed
Well, something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

I can admit it. It's an illusion. This concept I've had that the money entering college athletics won't turn the crowds into pro sports crowds? It's not a thing. It isn't real. As the stakes raise – as the fan investment becomes monetary – this is bound to be the environment. There's a lot more on the line now.

Which is why, sadly, for the first time, I'm left to wonder if I'll still want to do this in 15 years. Not because college athletics are changing, but because the environments are. I actually believe the words of the school song – you know, the whole Back The Team To Gain A Victory thing – but maybe that's just slowly becoming extinct. I can see a future where anger wins, and I can see how I might not be able to stomach it at that point.

It's why Sunday was like an oasis for me. I didn't want to leave. I mean, look at my camera roll. I just sat there watching the players interact with the fans and taking photos and videos and photos and videos:

That's the purity of college athletics right there. And it's currently being hijacked in Champaign more than any other Big Ten city I've observed. We'll soon be the place where no team wants to play because the crowds are so awful, not because the crowds are so intimidating. And it breaks my heart.

I've looked at hoop from both sides now. From win and lose and still somehow.

It's still this photo I recall.