Mixed emotions for Phillips
Throughout a 25-minute conference call with reporters, Jim Phillips explained how he's balancing the thrill of becoming Northwestern's athletic director with the sorrow of leaving the same post at Northern Illinois.
Reconciling those conflicting emotions wound up reducing Phillips to mush.
As soon as he hung up his phone Thursday morning, he broke down and wept. And not for the first time.
While Phillips and his wife, Laura, get to move within minutes of their parents and childhood homes -- a significant inducement to accept his "dream job" in Evanston -- they and their four children must leave the place they consider to be home in order to do it.
And they have to acknowledge the change at a particularly awkward time in their community, when hearts remain raw after the Feb. 14 shootings at Cole Hall.
"I'm really uncomfortable with the focus being on me at this time," Phillips said.
The 42-year-old actually accepted Northwestern's offer in the days leading up to that tragic event but didn't want to reveal his decision until a more suitable time.
While that's no longer possible, Phillips will stay on the job in DeKalb until he starts at Northwestern on April 14.
"My sole focus is on Northern Illinois," Phillips said. "I just think you need to leave the right way. This thing needs to be in great shape for the next person to come in."
Considering NIU's student-athletes compiled a collective 3.0 GPA or better in each of the last five semesters … and the $14 million Yordon Center has been a reality for almost a year … and Phillips hired new football and men's basketball coaches within the last 12 months, there's not a lot of tidying to do.
"Jim has been an outstanding member of the NIU family," President John Peters said in a statement, "accomplishing great things for Huskie Athletics and always setting the best possible example for his staff and our student-athletes."
Peters plans to launch a national search for Phillips' successor, though current associate AD Glen Krupica, a 1982 NIU graduate, would be among the legitimate in-house candidates.
When Phillips, who rarely sleeps more than a handful of hours per night, finally gets to turn his attention to Northwestern, he plans to find some temporary housing on the North Shore so he won't have to make the daily commute from Sycamore to Evanston.
But if Wildcats fans are expecting Phillips to put an immediate stamp on NU athletics, they're going to be disappointed.
"I think I'm decent at knowing what I don't know," Phillips said. "I don't know the department real well. I know some of the people in the department. I know some of the coaches.
"But I think it's going to be very important for me to go in and to learn and to observe and to watch, really, before I formulate any kind of judgment about the department or any programs. It will be similar to what I did here when I came."
In the moments when Phillips isn't focused on Northwestern, he will relish being within shouting distance of family.
Phillips' ailing 92-year-old father still lives in the Our Lady of Victory parish -- hard by the Edens/Kennedy spur on Chicago's Northwest Side -- from where Phillips made the short trek to NU games as a kid.
Laura Phillips' parents still live in Des Plaines, which made it an easy summertime ride to Evanston Beach for their family. Laura also settled in Evanston straight out of college.
"We're really excited about the opportunity -- and honored and humbled," Phillips said. "I think it's a perfect fit for us. I honestly feel it's a place we can spend the rest of our lifetime at."