Illini Football 2024

Status
Not open for further replies.
#301      
Toews
Illini in Italy said:
University symbols mean much more to the alumni than to students. I don't remember a single person during my student year, nor during my kids' time choosing colleges stating that the symbol of the university under consideration mattered even one iota. Alums on the other hand, will go to war for their beloved symbol.
Click to expand...
Sure but what’s the beloved symbol? As an alum the idea of a WWI doughboy being a symbol of the school is a recent idea and mostly the work of retconning lol. I can’t say most of the alumni talk to would go to war over the idea of a WWI imagery. Let’s be honest Fighting Illini was associated with Native American imagery until like that Beckman rebrand. You don’t go to school for the symbol but that connection has to be made when you’re at school usually. And I don’t think anyone will care about WWI as a student sorry to say. It’s a football game not the history channel.
 
#302      
Toews
I think if we try to reverse engineer from a similar pond as other schools traditions it will be seen as phony. And tbh the school has tried things. The Red Grange race, throwback uniforms, and the Butkus statue were all things we did to tie the current team to a storied past. There’s also a lot of improvement that can be done for the gameday experience including concessions and ticket prices which the school has already attempted to improve. At the end of the day though tradition is having a good team. Orange Krush isn’t what makes Illini Basketball have tradition. It’s the fact that they cheered on the Flyin Illini, Dee and Deron, Ayo and Kofi, TSJ, etc. There’s not like a specific Illini Basketball tradition that fans latch onto besides there’s been really good teams and players that most fans connected with. Illini football has that but it’s just been too long. Not many fans remember watching Butkus and Grange. There’s been brief periods of success in the 80s and 90s but that was awhile ago. Also fan support was great then! The way to build traditions is for the students and younger alumni to actually see consistent, good winning football.
 
#303      
GoDucks349
SoCal Illini said:
I took a visit to willamette when speckman was still the coach. The guy with no hands. Cool little school, they showed me a great time. Visited Oregon too, which was the only big school to give me the time of day so got to see phil knight’s donations in person. Unfortunately I don’t feel very good about the Illini’s odds vs the ducks, but it’s worth going to see a game there. Great addition for the big 10
Click to expand...
In a lot of ways, I really like the smaller college sport programs, it's a very fun environment. I played bball at a very small college, it was a lot of fun. I like Willamette, it's a good school.

Hope you had a good opportunity to play and enjoy collegaite sports.

I ended up with a couple degrees from Oregon, so yea, I hope my Ducks beat Illinois. But that's how it's suppose to be right? You hope to beat my Ducks and I hope to beat Illinois. That's life. Let's just hope it's a great game and no one gets hurt..
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back