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onto another topic,
I'm closely connected to the one school that has quite a reputation for having fans that don't pull for the conference or other teams in the conference. The sentiment is dying somewhat, but it's mainly due to the conference completely bending us over and [censored] us
there was the ridiculous late 60s slush scandal enforcement by the conference
the postseason probation over a QB suing the conference for a medical redshirt year
other local teams conspiring to do the 89-90 NCAA investigation for basketball
and the one-sidedness in 'breaks' against some of the conference favored cows
Alot of the old-timers still hate the conference with a passion---a small minority wished the school left it a long time ago
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Occam's Razor: If your team sucks for a long period of time, is it more likely to be the result of poor management/decisions/location/etc, or a vast conspiracy? Actually, real question: what is your explanation of the probation during/after the Mike White era in the 80's? Like what was the school accused of and why in your opinion was it wrong?
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LOL....you think I'm making things up and putting conjecture/conspiracy into this.
That isn't what is going on.
I'm just reporting the facts.
Keep in mind that the Illinois athletics program looked pretty good, not great, on the whole until the 'slush fund' scandal of the late 60s.
Time magazine on slush fund
Why Illinois Cannot Cheat--Part I
the results to the basketball team
the story on the Deon Thomas incident
notice Bobby Knight of Indiana outright falsely accusing Illinois
notice Iowa and Bruce Pearl making false accusations
then, of course, Bobby's little cockholder, Digger Phelps, gets involved and his player LaPhonso Ellis makes outright fradualant claims
as the saying goes around here, "Illinois found innocent... punished anyway"
onto the two Mike White issues
the first was the BigTen not allowing Illinois a postseason bowlgame for one season because Dave Wilson, Illinois QB, sued the conference due to the denial of a medical redshirt year he wanted when he was injured on the second play of a season in JC.
the second from the NCAA that forced White out was due to the recruitment of Hart Lee Dykes
An Illinois assistant game Dykes $100 to set him up at one of the local hotels for a night to try and keep him on lockdown for national signing day. Dykes received thousands and a car from other schools and is the only player I know of to result in 3 different schools on probation. Yes, Illinois screwed up here. (Screwed up in a big way if they thought $100 could recruit a guy receiving thousands and a car from the other suitors.) Two other real violations were shown when Illinois assistants bought clothing for two guys on a recruiting visit who should up from JCs in California in flip flops and shorts to Illinois in January (true story---some actual life stuff is too funny). However, the past of Illinois was used to make this a 'major' violation. Plus, there was a whole smattering of folks upset at Illinois for their use of JC players and shaking up the Big11Ten power structure. The prolonged investigation (3 years... to find a $100 payment...WTF) resulted in difficulties for Mike White recruiting and hurt his chance to keep Illinois at the top, which looked highly possible in 83-85 area. FFS, Illinois was stuck with Brian Menkhausen at QB one year....yuck!
The Mike White era came up recently on insideillini.com and tends to come up every few months. The very first response sums up the general attitude of Illinois fans who went to games in the Mike White era, "Briefly, he had the audacity to beat Bo Schembechler. There was a heavy price to pay for that back in the day."
A good source for alot of this info is
Undue Process: the NCAA's Injustice For All by Don Yaegar
I wish this all wasn't true
I think you can understand why I hate most of the other local universities... one who has the ability to reason would be hard pressed to like any of them
it's funny that Illinois has had the 'sleeping superpower' mantra quite a bit for both football and basketball. It is THE state university for one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. One of the largest reasons for the lack of success has been the contentious relationship with the conference and the NCAA.