A Bridge Too Far

Earlier this week, we learned that new OL coach and photoshop treasure Jim Bridge was to become the next Illini football position coach to join this winter's mass exodus. This wasn't like Clink leaving for the closest thing the North has to a Southern metropolis (the city of Cincinnati terrifies me) or Billy Gonzalez returning to the conference that he had previously succeeded in (it's okay, our winters were too cold for the man). No, this was an untenable act of aggression from an enemy within our own conference. This was Purdue sinking the Maine. And as a wise man once said, this aggression will not stand.

For far too long, the internet and college sports fans have ignored the insidious menace residing in the miniature and lesser version of the great state of Illinois. We've pretended not to know of Purdue or that no such institution exists, as though it were the Boston College of the Midwest or making light of their fragile and poorly constructed knees. I am here to tell you that we can no longer sit idly by while those villainous bastards in West Lafayette are allowed to continue smiling and generally enjoying life as best as one can in west central Indiana.

They stole our OL coach! They're the only basketball team in the conference to consistently beat us on a regular basis! They're the closest university to us in the conference!

The Boilermakers are the proletariat that have forgotten from whence they came, prancing about in all their fancy golden uniforms with multiple mascots. The train builders need to be put back in their place.

It is time to bring the rivalry with Purdue to the next level. We must take everything from them. When Tim Beckman is ultimately fired after next football season, Mike Thomas needs to do the right thing: hire the entire coaching staff away from Purdue. Will it help us improve in football? Probably not! I mean shit, they hired John Shoop as their offensive coordinator! But Darrell Hazell can't be any worse than Beckman and we'd finally be free of the embarrassing stigma that comes with somehow never having an African-American head coach for football or basketball.

They win a basketball game, we make the tournament. They steal a position coach, we take their entire coaching staff. That's the Chicago way and next season it will be our way too.

Focus your hate eastward, Champaigniacs. We were always at war with Purdue.