I went to Loyola University of Chicago for a lot of shallow reasons, I'm not going to lie. They gave me the largest scholarship, they're curriculum is well-rounded, they don't follow that 'state school party-sports' stereotype, their campus isn't too big, and no one from high school was going to follow me there. I knew they had a decent athletic department, but I didn't really focus on it. For me, that whole 'let's get wild every weekend because we can' lifestyle was worn out by my senior year of high school.

Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re thinking to yourself and I’m going to let you know right now:

Yes, I am fun at parties.

If you want proof, I can send you copies of the three citations I got my junior year of high school when I was arrested for going a ‘little’ too hard when I was a ‘little’ too underage. As if going out wasn’t already expensive enough. Try going out, getting caught, and ending up with $1,200.00 worth of tickets to pay for doing what everyone else was doing, but just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that’s another story.

One of the reasons I went to Loyola because I was hoping to be less distracted by the party scene so I can focus more on my education. Like I said, I can go a little too hard especially if that’s the norm. Loyola typically supports me in that way simply because the campus is pretty dry on the weekends. However, once our basketball team started winning games and moving up in the brackets in a way no one anticipated, my academically-oriented school quickly transitioned into a more sports-oriented school.

I suppose it’s just frustrating for me because I came here with the intention to avoid that kind of environment. Since we started winning, everything just has this charge to it that I wasn’t ready for. It can get pretty irritating when I’m trying to get to my 8.15 class and six camera crews are blocking the walkway, or when I can’t even walk into the student center because the line to buy final four shirts is flooding out of the bookstore and directly in front of the entrance.

I’ve even been seeing changes in my family members since our team made national news. People who originally chastised me for moving to Chicago and not going to an in-state school were suddenly so supportive of the very school they trash talked at Thanksgiving. It went from one week getting a lecture on how there’s plenty of better schools closer to home to the next week where it is so awesome that my school is winning and maybe could I get them a Loyola Basketball t-shirt.

I do recognize that my experiences might only represent only me, and I get that many others don’t share my opinion. I don’t want to hate on people because they’re having fun. There are just some negative aspects of going from The Team No One Knew to Major March Madness Underdog that I think should be acknowledged.

For example, Loyola has not been sufficiently compensating their non-tenure faculty. Recently, these faculty members (the majority of my favorite, inspiring, intelligent professors) have threatened a strike on April 4th. I doubt any of those six news crews wants to cover that story. No one seems to care if the teachers, students are paying $40k a year to learn from, are being exploited and taken advantage of.

There’s a lot of other aspects relating to these topics that I’m not ready to go into, and that’s why I’m not going to make any definitive accusations. I’m not here to exclusively attack sports programs, sports fans, the basketball team, or Sister Jean.

Especially not Sister Jean.

It really depends on the person and their priorities, availability, preferences, ect. I’m glad students can rally for something fun and communal. It’s important that we find a place where we can fit in and relate to one another. Our basketball team’s success has definitely brought everyone together, and that’s undoubtedly a beautiful thing.

This is just my disclaimer for anyone that wants an unpopular perspective or feels the same way. It’s also a bit of a purge because not gonna lie, my classes have been pushing me to the edge these past weeks.