In reply to: off the front page * * posted by olson
I don't know what Dan Kegel and Ted Williams are doing today - they are both in their late 50s - but I hope they made a lot of money along the way.
The Rose Bowl hosted the BCS for the first time, so the Illini went to the Sugar Bowl.
Looking up the that season's results for the Illini, I was shocked that their first game was played on Sept. 28 against Cal. I was at that game and vividly remember being amazed by Craig Morton and his arm and accuracy as he bounced about a half dozen bullets off receivers numbers on crossing patterns. Could not believe the Illini won that game except that Grabowski kept breaking up the middle for 15 yds. about every 5th play or so and Cal could not run for a yard against Butkus and crew.
Later that year, my Mom and Dad took me to Purdue as Dick Butkus was everywhere(I even bought a soda from him at halftime) as the illini dominated in Ross-Aide on a beautiful Nov. 1 Sat. afternoon.
After Christmas, my parents took a memorable trip to California for the Rose Bowl,which the Illini won. It was a blessing as those kinds of things don't happen often to the program. Neither of them were alums, but Mom's brother, a future chief of surgery at St;Luke's-Presbyterian Hospital, was, as were most folks around central Illinois. Great memories.
What really irked me about the slush fund scandal that crippled the program was that the Illini were not trying to cheat to gain an advantage. They were copying the programs that had been in place for years, first at Michigan, and then at Purdue whose AD had been contacted by Illinois AD Cecil Coleman who was seeking advice on how to go about setting up and funding such a program. Illinois did not have a fund nearly the size of either and only used it to help kids with personal problems who needed travel home to help their families. Neither Michigan nor Purdue had the character anywhere in their schools to step forward and say "wait a minute, we have been doing that for years". All this has been researched and published by a guy named Mike Brumby more than a decade ago, along with a myriad of other facts. Yes, Michigan sucks, but the low life behavior of their administration and athletic dept., charged with teaching and leading the youth of today, deserves no respect and should surprise no one. Michigan was one of the first NCAA schools to be cited for violations and have not stopped in over 100 years.
Illinois had a bunch of close games that year including the game against an Ara-coached NU team. The Illini won 10-9. That game was the last game Ara would coach in Champaign-Urbana until 1967 when his Irish shellacked the hapless Illini
He came to Illinois from Cal where his '75 team won the PAC-8. So he knew the landscape. After Illinois he returned to the Bay Area, coached the Raiders for a couple years, then went to the Rams later on, I think. Didn't he replace Gary Moeller at Illinois?
except at Illinois. He tried, but he never had any good players. Which players who were any good wanted to go to Illinois in the early/mid 1970"s? His 1954 team at the University of Denver went 9-1 and won the Skyline Conference title. DU finished #18 in the national rankings, the only time a DU team was ever ranked. He was no slouch.