Today’s column from CBS Chicago …
(CBS) Last month, Michael Jordan celebrated his 50th birthday. Saturday, the University of Illinois’ Assembly Hall celebrates its 50th birthday.
And, once upon a time, I mistakenly celebrated the former while celebrating inside the latter.
It was March 1992, and I was a sophomore at Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School. On that Friday afternoon, our 28-2 boys basketball team, led by 6-foot-9 Illinois recruit Chris Gandy, was down on the Assembly Hall court for an Elite Eight game and I was high up in the stands with hundreds of my festive schoolmates.
During warm-ups, one of us spotted a tall, lanky black man with a shaved head walking around on the arena floor and chatting up people courtside. Immediately, speculation spread among the students around me that Michael Jordan – Michael Jordan! – was in the house. Within minutes, we had giddily determined that it was fact.
Even though it wasn’t.
Turned out that once a few of us actually got a closer look, we realized the man wasn’t Jordan. He was just some dude with a shaved head. As to why we thought that MJ would be at the Bradley-Bourbonnais vs. Palatine Fremd state quarterfinal game 130 miles from Chicago on a Friday, I really don’t know. But, hey, we were goofy high school kids, and we did.
All these years later, I still fondly recall that moment of teenage exuberance and naïveté at Assembly Hall, just one of many great memories that I’ve made inside the iconic arena over the years.
Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …