Yes, it’s supposed to sound like “Illini”.

OK, a little about this site.  I started ALionEye.com in February 2009 – I simply took a breakdown of our signing class that I had posted on an Illini message board, reformatted it, and posted it on the domain name I had purchased.  And ALE was born.

The site is published by Robert.  Yep, just Robert.  I’d love to add my last name, but honestly, I don’t want to be Google-able just yet.  I still have a real job and a real boss and real clients, and at this point, I’m not interested in mixing my real career with my fake career.  So anonymity it is.

But I will tell you a little bit about myself.  I graduated from Illinois in 1996 with a degree nowhere close to writing or journalism.  My last two years in Champaign, I worked part time at the News Gazette, and I caught the sportswriting bug.  For 12 years I honed that craft on message boards and in emails to friends, complaining about Ron Turner or praising Lon Kruger.  In late 2008, I decided to purchase a domain name and start this blog.

What else… I live in the St. Louis area. I married a woman with three boys in 2005 and became an insta-dad.  I aim 30 degrees to the left when I golf to play my slice. I once won a t-shirt for winning a sandwich eating contest.  I have a beard.

And I live for Illini football and basketball.  If I’m ever lucky enough to do this full time (now my dream), you would likely receive 3,000 words per day on the Illini. I don’t think I’d ever stop writing.  Until then, nearly every night, when my wife and kids go to sleep, I head to my office and sit at the computer and solve the Illini issues of the day.

I truly believe that the University of Illinois will reach two goals in my lifetime:  a consistent, winning football program, and a basketball national championship.  And I’ll be writing about both until they happen.  And after.