Last night was the return of sports to Northern Illinois Unversity. Despite losing 56-49, it was very fortunate to see the team back on the court. We had an attendance of 2,032, which I think is our 3rd best for the season. The attendance was disappointing, but somewhat reasonable considering there were only 700 or so people at the last game. Let's not forget that our basketball team is 6-18 and plays in the MAC conference.
Read any article and it will tell you that more people should have gone to the game. Maybe it was a problem with marketing and nobody knew about the game. People may have been expecting a Virginia Tech-esque crowd of people. We don't have any legacy in basketball. The last time we made a tourney was in 1996. Ricardo Patton has us on the right tracks, just now is not the time. Now if there was a football game coming up, the crowd for that would have been insane and would have set the attendance record without a doubt.
AD Jim Phillips is gone to Northwestern. The hiring happened weeks ago, but the announcement was obviously delayed because of the February 14th shootings. It would not have been appropriate to announce his resignation because of the situation.It was only a matter of time the arguably greatest AD NIU has ever seen would leave the school. He has done so much for the university and was a master of fundraising, upgrading NIU's facilities significantly with the opening of the Yordon AAPC last fall.
Phillips had a contagious positive personality that everybody he met and talked to got to feel. He had to make tough decisions in the firing of basketball coach Rob Judson and hiring of Ricardo Patton from Colorado, providing the resources needed to succeed in that sport in the future.
Not only did he hire Patton, he also went through 1,000 resumes in the hiring of new head football coach Jerry Kill. It was the absolutely perfect time to get a new football coach, and Phillips completed the task admirably.
We offered to match Northwestern's offer, but he just had to make the decision to move on. It was the best decision he could have made and here's why: Ron Guenther, the AD for University of Illinois is expected to leave after 2010. That is the dream job for Phillips, because he is an alum from U of I from the class of 1990. That job is the biggest opportunity for Phillips, except he is not guaranteed the job will be available to him. He may not be hired to be the AD for Illinois 2 years from now. So instead of putting all of his eggs in one basket, Phillips has decided to move up to the Big 10 and have Illinois pry him away from NW.
Goodbye Jim, we will never forget you and will always appreciate the things you have done for this university.
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