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Hello….and Goodbye

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First, the goodbye. That would be to my Illini. You can’t win in the Dance if you can’t handle a full court press and make free throws.

As for the hello, I’m Southlandish, a longtime friend of The Iconic Midwesterner dating from our University of Illinois days. I’m a lifelong Cards and Illini fan who has spent the last 16 years on Florida’s west coast. I LOATHE all Florida sports teams and for years my preferred outcome for the annual Gator-Seminole game was for the team buses to spontaneously combust on the way to the stadium. With maturity, I now simply root for a rash of hamstring injuries.

As for other sport, I’ve always detested the NBA, never watched the NHL and in recent years found myself watching an ever-dwindling number of NFL games.

I spend of fair amount of time in Europe each year and reading English papers. Consequently, I have become more and more interested in European club and national soccer. The Guardian’s weekly football podcast is now a favorite.

feed://www.guardian.co.uk/podcast/0,,329566055,00.xml

Sporting highlights include meeting Jack Buck at Al Lang Field and having fourth row season tickets at Assembly Hall for the Flying Illini Final Four team. Lowlights include being at Busch Stadium when Vince Coleman was run over by the tarp and at Wrigley Field the day Daryl Kile died. It was surreal but it also made me proud to be a Midwesterner. 38,000 people who were primed for a classic nationally televised Cards/Cubs battle filed out of Wrigley quietly and respectfully that day with nary an incident.

Well, that’s about it for the seriousness. From here on out it’s snark and venom.
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