I hate myself for accepting admission to this fraud of a University all those years ago. I am ashamed to call myself a graduate.
I spent 6 years on campus (with a hiatus for 2 years between undergrad and grad school.
My sophomore year was the national-runner up basketball team. 11 years ago at this moment I was in my 17th hour standing in line for the Illinois vs. Wake Forest basketball game (I spent the night of my 20th birthday freezing my !!! off in a tent by the front door, and met some of my best friends from undergrad huddling for warmth).
Football was an abject disaster while I was an undergrad, sadder than anything right now (although we're trying to go back to that)... we won 2 big ten games in four years... the fall after i graduated we went to the Rose Bowl, a trip I made with some of the people I met the night before the Wake Forest game and with other friends I made tailgating.
When I came back for grad school the sports were pretty mediocre (a tournament team that didn't do much in basketball... the Texas Bowl team in football, which is still the second most fun team I've watched at Illinois). I kept going to games, had fun, and met more people... some of them I went to games with, many of them that didn't give a damn about sports. Going back for a couple football games a year is a great excuse to also go visit the couple friends I have left in Chambana.
Ultimately I went to the #10 ranked public university in the nation, and my academic program is ranked #3 in the united states and the best in the Big Ten... I'm better off, and the people of Illinois are better off, for that than if we switched places with Iowa.
that said, I like sports, and following Illinois has been fun at times, and is now so completely frustrating. It made up a big part of my undergrad experience... and has continued to engage me in the school going forward (I would lie if I said it kept me close to my academic department, if anything it makes me reflect that I should mail them a few bucks each year instead of buying merch or tickets)
Ultimately Killeen and whoever replaces Babs as Chancellor are going to be tasked with keeping up the academic prestige of the school, it's an intsitution that is immensely valuable to the region and the state and nation as a whole.
...but those of us who like sports should be really upset at the idiocy on display in the last month... every single time someone has acted or opened their mounts to talk about the DIA they have made the wrong decision. Even in keeping Cubit (which maybe could be excused) they set him and the future of the program up for failure, a situation created out of whole cloth by firing mike thomas 3 weeks before the season ended.... last night they can't even get their ducks in a row to decide whether this program should go to a bowl game (the obvious answer is yes)... there are players currently tweeting about how they'd love to give the seniors one more game. We're failing the athletes and we're failing the fans... which is failing our future.