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A messy University of Illinois admissions scandal stole the summer spotlight. Not to worry, newcomers.

It will soon take a back seat as a clued-in governor restructures the Board of Trustees.

Your only relationship with the board will be when it raises your tuition.
Well, what did you expect? There are shortages everywhere, as we’re seeing in the delays over renovating Lincoln Hall.

Hopefully (but not likely) that wondrous teaching facility will be done before you graduate.

As prospective members of the 2013 graduating class, you hit your first classes today at a most exciting time sportswise. The Illini have so many arrows pointing up, they look like a porcupine.

It hasn’t always been this way. No, sir. Just four years ago, when you were wide-eyed high school rookies, Ron Zook’s first UI football team was outscored 351-94 in an 0-8 Big Ten season. The four-season stretch through 2006 brought two conference wins and 30 losses. Yep, the Illini went 2-30. Imagine what your older brothers and sisters went through.

That was before the eye-popping additions to Memorial Stadium, before the North End became Students Gone Wild, before the majestic Red Grange statue graced the west side, before the UI shared in revenue from a Big Ten-owned TV network reaching 73 million homes, and before Zook expanded beyond Chicagoland to bring in mobile, head-knocking athletes from Florida, Ohio and Washington, D.C.

So, if all doesn’t go well this fall, count your blessings. The playing field has been leveled, and Illinois is primed to compete. Zook’s steady recruiting has uplifted a football program that, after five straight losses to Missouri in St. Louis, is adjudged by some to be a touchdown favorite over the Tigers on Sept. 5. Optimism is such that the early Big Ten home games against Penn State and Michigan State are headed for sellouts. And, whatever it takes, make sure you’re there for the Oct. 31 showdown against hated rival Michigan, an opponent Illinois has defeated once in Memorial Stadium since the late Ray Eliot was coach in 1958. Yes, Juice Williams set records in Michigan Stadium last season and Illinois breezed 45-20, but the last half-century shows exactly one home triumph, 16-6 in the Big Ten championship season of 1983. We could see a piece of history on Halloween.

Gonna be fun
If there is burgeoning optimism on the football front, it is not the only attraction this fall.

The UI never has had a female distance runner comparable to Angela Bizzarri. Follow her footsteps. The senior from Ohio is fresh from capturing Big Ten and NCAA titles at 5,000 meters, and is poised to improve on her sixth-place NCAA cross-country finish a year ago. She is favored to win her third consecutive Dike Eddleman Award as the UI’s top female athlete.

Veteran soccer coach Janet Rayfield has her program on the move, having reached the NCAA Sweet 16 last year. With senior Chichi Nweke leading the scoring, the team enters the new campaign at No. 17 nationally. Meanwhile, new volleyball coach Kevin Hambly inherits a nationally ranked women’s team that kicked off a promising season Saturday with its annual alumni match. Ranked Nos. 10 and 13 in preseason polls, the Illini feature three rangy athletes on the cover of their media guide: Big Ten Freshman of the Year Michelle Bartsch, second-team All-American Laura DeBruler and the nation’s blocks leader Johannah Bangert.

Huff Hall will be packed when they open at home in the State Farm Classic Sept. 11-12. But this will be mild compared to their Assembly Hall showdown against Mike Hebert’s Minnesota team Oct. 16 as part of basketball’s Illini Madness. With 125,000 free tickets being distributed throughout the community and beyond, UI officials are hoping to set an attendance record for the 6:30 p.m. volleyball match and the basketball practice that follows.

Hoop dreams
Illini Nation can’t wait to see two revamped basketball teams.
At least one (D.J. Richardson) and possibly two (Brandon Paul) freshmen are expected to crack Bruce Weber’s starting lineup. The 2009-10 season is projected as the sendoff for a multiyear run of success based on quality incoming talent. And the conference, having struggled through several years of mediocrity, is regaining national respect with two Top 10 teams in Michigan State and Purdue.

But if the UI men’s team has made an athletic upgrade, Jolette Law’s quintet has been completely revamped around All-Big Ten center Jenna Smith. Led by Destiny Williams, a Benton Harbor, Mich., forward who played this summer for the USA U19 world championship team, Law’s incoming class is ranked No. 3 nationally. After eight consecutive years without a plus-.500 Big Ten record, the women’s team appears headed for a strong run in the first division.

Up and down the line, Illini teams are setting high standards. The men’s golf team, directed by Mike Small, has everyone back from a team that won the Big Ten by 13 strokes and is embarking on another strong autumn schedule. Both Illini tennis teams will be strong.
It is, regardless of summer distractions, a good time to be an Illini.

And no, there’ll be no official return of Chief Illiniwek. Not even a new Board of Trustees can change that. So you’ll have to ask the upperclassmen about him and perhaps catch an unauthorized performance locally. Then, if you close your eyes during the 3-in-1 halftime music, you’ll be able to experience a wondrous tradition that was felled by overreaching sensitivity do-gooders. Watch your step. There are plenty of those on campus, too.

Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette. He can be reached at ltate@news-gazette.com.