When Kiyoshi first sent this to me, I thought it was a joke:
Just before tipoff, a soldout crowd at Assembly Hall saw a giant egg lowered onto the court as the speakers blared the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey."
When the egg reached the ground, a giant red-and-gray bird wearing a Fighting Illini T-shirt and blue high-top gym shoes jumped out and started dancing around.
The crowd's response was immediate and vocal, said Tom Porter, who was at the game and is now U of I's director of marketing.
"I just remember everybody booing, and it didn't go over very big," Porter said. "Everybody loves the Chief, and if they have anybody else take center stage during the halftime performance - it had never been done as long as we were here, and it was unusual - and they just didn't accept it."
The crowd chanted "Shoot that bird" throughout most of the first half, and three male cheerleaders rammed him into the basket standard, reported U of I's student newspaper in an article the next day.
Read the whole thing for a good Monday morning chuckle.
Is this a joke or something?
Evidently it really happened. I thought it was a joke when I first read it, too. Any readers personally remember it?
I think we need a new mascot...something really impressive...like a...big fat buckeye walking around. I get chills just thinking about it.
Didn't those UI students realize that the OB bird was honoring them?
(Actually the whole thing sounds a lot more fun than the grimly serious Illiniwek thing).
I SAW THIS ACT, I WAS THE ACT. AND I WAS HONORING THE LOYALTY OF THE ILLINI. THAT ARTICLE THAT HIT PJSTAR.COM WAS LIES FROM AN OLD BAND DIRECTOR. I WAS ONLY MAKING ENTERTAINMENT FOR THE KIDS AND GETTING THE CROWD INTO THE GAME. THE CHIEF DURING THAT YEAR, HAD A BROKEN LEG, I WAS ONLY GOING TO FINISH THE SEASON AND THAT WOULD BE IT. NOW 25 YEARS LATER SOMEONE GOT MY NAME AND DRAGGED ME INTO IT AGAIN.
This is your brain on drugs.
I was at that game. Yeah, the male cheerleaders crotch-rammed the guy. He came mid-season, unnannounced. The Illini were really good in the early '80s, and they were blowing out whoever the played....so the game was dull, and the poor bird, who looked like a K-Mart version the the San Diego Chicken (a big deal at the time), didn't have a chance in front of an impatient crowd of Assembly Hall patrons.
Now if he could've jumped and performed acrobatics like the Chicken, history would've turned out differently.'
The Chief did not have a broken leg. Even if he did, there's always a back-up Chief. There still is, I guess.
A-well-a everybody's heard about the bird B-b-b-bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word A-well-a bird, bird, bird, the bird is the word... A-well-a don't you know about the bird? Well, everybody knows that the bird is the word! (Sorry, I couldn't resist :-)
What about his first amendment rights to dress up like a bird and jump around on the floor of a major educational institution without getting crotch-rammed?