The Champaign Room has some BIG news!

Hey TCR fans!

It’s me, Stephen Cohn, the Site Manager for this entire production we call The Champaign Room!

Since I took over back on August 1, we have hired some incredible writers and people to come aboard and cover Illinois athletics for TCR. Some old friends left to take new opportunities, and some new faces have been polluting your Facebook and Twitter feeds with coverage of six-consecutive (and counting!) Illinois football losses.

While all of the writers we have hired have produced great content and helped TCR’s voice continue to shine in a crowded sports media market, one of my first goals when coming on-board was to make The Champaign Room a credentialed media outlet.

This journey started with covering head coach Lovie Smith’s weekly press conferences (distributed via Facebook Live) and talking to players and coaches.

Last week, The Champaign Room found out we’re going to be able to take our content to the next level: we’re a credentialed Illinois men’s basketball outlet.

To help us take on this awesome challenge will be Erich Fisher, a sophomore at the University of Illinois. Erich (pictured above) has worked at The Daily Illini for the past two years covering swimming, softball and club hockey, and he has helped out in other ways as well.

What this all means is that The Champaign Room, with Erich’s help, will be able to take you closer to the action than ever before. We’ll provide notebooks from practice, game recaps, and feature stories — stories that you won’t find anyone else covering.

I’m already working with Erich and the rest of our incredible staff on what our basketball content will look like, but I can promise you it will be second-to-none.

So get ready, Illini fans: The Champaign Room is going big-time, and we need your support!

I-L-L!

Stephen Cohn

The Champaign Room Site Manager