Newsletter

C-U Soon (4/22/22)

The newsletter from Champaign Showers dot com.

Good News

-Illini athlete Daniel Romanchuk won his second Boston Marathon this week, cementing his status as an absolute legend.

Congratulations to #ILLINOIS athlete Daniel Romanchuk, who has secured his second victory in the Boston Marathon!
— University of Illinois (@UofIllinois) 2:40 PM ∙ Apr 18, 2022

-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.

Illinois gas stations will be required to put a sticker on each gas pump noting lawmakers suspended the gas tax inflation adjustment, and the price drivers pay should reflect it. The Illinois Fuel & Retail Association plans to fight it in court. #twill
— Mike Miletich (@MikeMiletichTV) 11:53 PM ∙ Apr 20, 2022

— Gäbe (@TheDailyKoko) 2:44 PM ∙ Apr 9, 2022

-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.

What is Champaign to ME? It’s the place where I’m raising my children, supporting local business, and where I am running for Congress. I’ll tell you what it’s not…3 hours away.
— David Palmer for Congress (@PalmerforIL) 2:17 PM ∙ Apr 20, 2022

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:

Playing a little catch-up on some petition objections. But Ellis Taylor of Decatur was tossed from the #IL13 Democratic primary ballot last week. Nikki Budzinski and David Palmer will face each other in a head-to-head matchup. #twill
— Brenden Moore (@brendenmoore13) 5:05 PM ∙ Apr 21, 2022

Bad News

-This is more bittersweet news than explicitly bad news, but Kofi is gone. Sad.

NEXT CHAPTER 🙏🏾
— King Kofi (@kxng_alpha) 1:02 PM ∙ Apr 20, 2022

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:

Yeoooo Kofi hit the ref with a falcon punch😂😂😂
— Hoop Fiends 🏀💉 (@hoopfiends) 4:30 AM ∙ Dec 12, 2019

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?