For student writer Jesse Kramer, all books and basketball
CHICAGO — Leo Krause, the sports information director at Loyola University in Chicago, couldn't wait to talk about Jesse Kramer.
"Jesse," he responded, almost immediately, "is one of a kind!"
Krause has good reason to like Kramer. In a year when the local papers have reduced coverage of this up-and-coming Division I basketball program, Kramer has become the main beat writer for the Ramblers. He's also the main beat writer for Illinois-Chicago, to go along with beat coverage of DePaul and Northwestern.
All of this would be fairly unremarkable other than the fact that Kramer is a full-time Northwestern student — a sophomore — to go along with being a full-time beat writer for four different schools. And as he gears up for final exams on a full class load, he's in the middle of a stretch run of college basketball games for the ages:
27 games in 23 days.
The streak began on February 21 for Northwestern vs. Penn State, and it includes two NU games, three Illinois-Chicago games, a DePaul game, a Loyola game, a UW-Milwaukee game, the Missouri Valley Tournament in St. Louis and concludes Sunday with the Big Ten Tournament final here. Included was a Saturday doubleheader, when he split his time between Chicago's West Loop (UIC) and Rogers Park (Loyola). In between games, he attends practices at Northwestern, Loyola, UIC and DePaul, spending as much as six-to-eight hours a week riding public transportation around the city.
Kramer runs a site called The Catch And Shoot, which he started as a senior in high school in the Bronx, covering Fordham, LIU-Brooklyn, Columbia and Manhattan. But when it came time to leave New York for college, Kramer set his sights on Chicago and Northwestern's journalism school, which would give him the ability to cover big-time (and small-time) college hoops.
"I have a ridiculous passion for the mid-majors," Kramer said.
What he doesn't have is a car. Getting to Loyola takes a transfer to the notoriously erratic red line on the Chicago "L." The trip to UIC can take up to an hour-and-a-half on the train. The trip to DePaul must be done by bus. Even the weather can't stop him.
"Still don't think this comes close to trekking through -30° temperatures and a foot of polar vortex snow to watch Loyola play Missouri St," he tweeted last year.
That was the game around which he planned his trip home for winter break.
What makes all of this most impressive — other than the fact that Kramer has yet to flunk out of school — is that Chicago basketball can be really painful to watch. Loyola is on the rise in the Missouri Valley, but Northwestern, DePaul and UIC all finished at the bottom of their respective conferences. Though he admits the losing can be frustrating, it has not been a deterrent.
"The last week of the regular season, I was at UIC three times in a six-day span," he said. That's nearly a full work day spent on the L.
Kramer has yet to find a beat writer to join him on The Catch And Shoot, because frankly, there might not be anyone else in the world who cares so much about mid-major basketball. That's why he has replaced Chicago's two major newspapers as the go-to writer for the Ramblers and the Flames, and that's just the way he likes it.
"For some reason, I like covering the small ones more just because fewer people do it," he said.
As he enters the home stretch of his incredible streak, the quality of competition will continue to improve. Kramer will see the likes of Wisconsin, Michigan State and Maryland this weekend as they battle it out at the 21,000-seat United Center. The stage will be bigger, and the media will swarm in from all over the Midwest.
But to Kramer, the stage doesn't matter. Next year, he'll be back making the trek to Rogers Park and the West Loop, braving the cold, the snow and Chicago's rickety public transportation to watch two teams you've only vaguely heard of play basketball.
He's one of a kind, but he wouldn't have it any other way.
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