For Illini sports fans, the spring of 2005 has been sweet: a No. 1-ranked men’s basketball team – replete with three All-America candidates – that nearly won the NCAA national championship; a men’s wrestling team – with five members named All-Americans – that finished in the NCAA Top 10; a No. 2 ranked men’s tennis team and a women’s gymnastics team that earned its second consecutive berth in the South Central Regional Championship.
But there are Illini fans, and then there are Illini fans: people whose devotion to Illinois is a family tradition and who think that painting the Hall orange is merely a good start.
The walls of Michael Supp’s cubicle in the Purchasing Division are covered with posters and schedules for the Illini basketball, volleyball, wrestling and football teams, but that’s just a preview of his collection. Supp, a purchasing officer, and his wife, Pat, have decorated a bedroom of their home in Sidney with Illini furnishings and filled it with memorabilia.
“We had stuff in the den and other rooms and boxes of it throughout the house and we decided to consolidate it into one room,” Supp said. “But there’s still stuff in other rooms, too.”
Supp has been a lifelong collector of Illini memorabilia – photos, clothing, helmets, knickknacks – and has collections of buttons, programs, game schedules from the last 20 to 25 years and a poster collection that dates back to the mid-1970s. Certain items, such as posters from the football team’s Rose Bowl appearance, are cherished.
“I look back and wish I had some of the stuff I lost or traded as a kid,” Supp said.
Illinois loyalty is a family tradition. When Supp’s 86-year-old father died in December, his devotion to the Illini was mentioned in his obituary as well as his eulogy. Supp’s 83-year-old mother remains an avid fan, as do the rest of his and his wife’s families.
For other Illini fans, such as Patrick Hayes, who grew up in Champaign-Urbana, allegiance to Illinois was more than a pastime – it was compulsory.
“My third-grade teacher at Westview Elementary School wouldn’t promote a student to the fourth grade unless they learned the words to ‘Illinois Loyalty,’ including the second verse,” said Hayes, who went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in speech communication at the UI, worked for the alumni association for 20 years and is now associate director of development for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Hayes, who describes himself as “an orange-and-blue fanatic,” also met his wife, Maria Salinas-Hayes, who is a graduate of the College of Business and member of the Athletic Board, when they were both undergraduates at Urbana.
The license plates on their cars read “Oskee” and “Wow Wow,” respectively.
“We have to be sure we park in the right order,” Hayes joked.
A pair of their retired plates are displayed on a shelf in Hayes’ office in the English building, alongside a Michigan license plate that says “Go UI” and a Florida plate that reads “UI Fan” that were given to Hayes by alumni living in other states.
Hayes, a collector of Harold “Red” Grange memorabilia, has an autographed photo of Grange hanging above his desk. Grange was the legendary Fighting Illini running back whose five touchdowns during the October 1924 Illinois-Michigan game, at which Memorial Stadium was dedicated, ended a two-year winning streak for Michigan and made Grange a football legend.
Next to the photo of Grange in his glory days is a photo of Hayes with an elderly Grange that was taken in Grange’s Florida home in 1990.
“I was in Florida on business for the Alumni Association and just phoned his home and asked if I might have the privilege of visiting,” Hayes said. “He was elderly and frail and his wife said she didn’t want to upset him. I said I’d be very respectful. I spent a couple of hours with him, and she ended up making me lunch.”
After Grange’s death in 1991, Hayes maintained a close friendship with Grange’s widow. On her first visit to the Urbana campus as the Hayes’ weekend guest 70 Octobers after Grange’s history-making performance, Mrs. Grange opened an Illinois-Michigan football game at Memorial Stadium by performing the coin-toss at mid-field.
In addition to books on Grange, Hayes also has a collection of Illinois Homecoming buttons. An alumna Hayes was visiting in Moline, Ill., recently gave him UI calendars from 1902 and 1904, which he planned to give to the University Archives, a place that he likes to haunt to ogle the memorabilia.
“Every time I go to the archives, I’m like a kid in a candy store. I just love going through their stuff,” Hayes said.
People in Facilities and Services Division who work with Randy Hatton, an electrical contracting supervisor and UI sports fan, were teasing him recently about his Illini-themed wardrobe, asking him if his outfit included orange boxer shorts.
“I told them I had on an orange thong,” Hatton said. He and his family are fans of various UI sports teams but especially men’s wrestling, for which Hatton is an occasional referee and son Troy is a strength coach and former team member.
Hatton, who travels throughout Central and Northern Illinois refereeing elementary school and high school wrestling matches, said he changed his officiating schedule so he could attend all the Illini meets.
“When we do the meets, we make it a family affair. Our four kids meet us, and we load up grandpa and grandma,” he said.
And some Illini fans – especially during the NCAA tournaments – are undeterred by distance, inclement weather or scheduling conflicts. Melanie Krueger, a chief clerk in the University Library, recalled one tournament season when she and her brother Mark, both UI students at the time, drove to Lexington, Ky., after their Thursday afternoon classes for a late-night Illini game, returned to Champaign after the game so Krueger could take a chemistry exam on Friday morning, then drove back to Lexington after she finished the exam so they could catch the next Illinois game.
Krueger’s sister, Karen, who retired in 2002 as deputy director to the associate vice president for administration and human resources, and their mother are all devoted fans who have followed the football and men’s basketball teams to tournaments in Minneapolis, Seattle and Hawaii.
Krueger said that she and her brother tend to be very vocal at the games, the boisterous sort of fans that elicit looks and comments from other fans. However, “we don’t ever get nasty with our players – only with another team’s players if they pull a ‘cheap shot,’ like the guy who broke Deron Williams’ jaw last year. I yelled at him a little. We mostly yell at the referees.”
Krueger recalled an incident at a basketball game last year when she became infuriated by “three big guys who were sitting in front of us, and the guy right in front of me was yelling at Sergio McClain, calling him a bum and telling him to get off the team.” When Krueger’s patience reached its end, she gave the man sitting in front of her a little shove and scolded him, “Don’t you yell at our players! That’s not right!” After reflecting a moment on the size of the man and his companions, Krueger added, “He was really very nice about it. But I wouldn’t recommend doing that.”
FAN-fare
About 10,000 people watched Monday night’s championship game on the video screens at the Assembly Hall and hundreds more watched in the Illini Union. Post-game festivities, which centered mostly in Campustown and on and around the Quad, involved more than 10,000 people – a larger number than took part after the Illini win last Saturday night against Louisville. The vast majority of celebrators apparently heard the message Coach Bruce Weber delivered in public service announcements and in a campuswide e-mail urging safe and enjoyable celebrations.
Officials said 11 people were arrested (eight of them students) after Monday night’s game on charges that included possession of fireworks, disorderly conduct and reckless conduct. Local fire departments responded to 23 calls of small fires in either trash receptacles or Dumpsters. Emergency medical personnel responded to five calls; no major injuries were reported.
Beaming up Bruce
UI men’s basketball coach Bruce Weber has been a regular sight around WILL’s Campbell Hall this spring. He’s been coming in to be “uplinked” for live telecasts on ESPN, FoxSportsNet and WFLD in Chicago.
Sitting in the WILL-TV studio, he’s been interviewed on camera by sports reporters and hosts around the country. “He’s been so much in demand this spring, that it’s kept us extra busy,” said Jeff Cunningham, who along with senior producer John Paul, works in WILL-TV’s VideoWorks video production services unit.
Thanks to the Urbana campus’s ability to transmit live video and audio to Vyvx in Chicago, UI experts in a variety of fields also have appeared on CNN, ABC’s “WorldNews Tonight,” the NBC’s “Today Show,” CBS News, and “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” Others who have appeared recently on the networks courtesy of VideoWorks include Jeffrey Brown, a UI professor of finance who’s been stumping with President Bush for changes to Social Security; U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, whose congressional kindness initiative drew media interest; and UI journalism professor Bill Gaines whose students researched the identity of Watergate’s “Deep Throat.”
The video and audio are transmitted to Chicago by fiber-optic cable. Then the Vyvx company transmits them by satellite or land line to the news media outlet requesting the feed.
For Weber’s appearances, VideoWorks had a photo of the Assembly Hall interior enlarged to 8 feet by 4 feet to use in the background. “It’s been fun to have Coach Weber come in,” said Cunningham. “He usually comes in at the last minute, but he just sits down and handles the interviews like a pro. And he always says thank you to the crew.”