EACH WEEK, WE'LL TAKE A LOOK BACK AT A MEMORABLE MOMENT IN ILLINI HISTORY, THANKS TO THE WORDS OF THE NEWS-GAZETTE

This week: In conjunction with UI basketball celebrating its 100th season in 2004-05, we asked Loren Tate to reflect upon his 60 years of coverage.

Date: Jan. 29, 2005

Headline: If it happened in Illinois basketball, I probably was there

By LOREN TATE

Sixty years! Imagine. Six decades of Fighting Illini basketball memories. This becomes more an autobiography than a column, more a story of related incidents than the games themselves.

I was a 15-year-old Monticello sophomore, and had been attuned to Illini basketball for several years, when the Whiz Kids returned for their senior season in 1946-47. Two years later, with the UI on my mind, Illini coach Harry Combes stopped by brother Linden Combes' pool hall for a friendly game of rotation (I let him win!). He made it as plain as he could: 'Sonny, if you want to play varsity basketball, you'd better attend Eastern Illinois or a school at that level.'

- Call me a walk-on: You might say this skin-and-bones 145-pounder chose journalism over basketball. I was overwhelmed in joining a freshman class that was one of the UI's greatest of all time. It included Clive Follmer from Forrest, Irv Bemoras from Chicago Marshall, Bob Peterson and Bob Survant from Elgin, Jim Bredar from Salem, Max Baumgartner from Sterling and Jim Schulte from Dundee. These players formed the nucleus for consecutive Final Four appearances in 1951 and 1952, and no one on campus in those days imagined the Illini would not get another undisputed Big Ten title until 2004.

- Quick reversal: My bags were already in the Beta house when two Monticello friends at Sigma Phi Epsilon said I could room with Don Sunderlage if I changed my mind. I said, 'You pick up my bags, and I'll be there.' Sunderlage was a magic name. He followed Dike Eddleman as the hottest item on campus, a spectacular guard who earned Big Ten MVP honors in 1951 as the leader of a team deep with sophomores.

- A valuable lesson: Sunderlage was cocky. His skinny roommate was also secretly confident. In an agreed-to, two-event showdown, we played 10 games of pool for $1 apiece. Having been raised in the Combes pool hall, where Harry's mother prepared many of my lunches, I won all 10. Then we walked across to Huff Gym to shoot games of 21, again for $1 each. I thought I was a pretty good shooter. Sunderlage won all 10. So we broke even, and I learned just how good he was.

- Spoiler Indiana: My strongest memory from the 1949-50 season was sitting behind the varsity bench and watching Bill Garrett, the Big Ten's first black basketball star, score 20 points (against Ox Osterkorn's 28) in Indiana's 83-72 win at Huff. It was the UI's only Big Ten loss at Huff that season, and the only Big Ten loss at home until Don Schlundt, Bobby Leonard and the Hoosiers did it again three years later.

- Sweet Revenge: Indiana was the archrival in those days and handed the 1951 Illini their only Big Ten loss in Bloomington. When they came to Huff in February, it was the national Game of the Week and drew a record 6,905 fans in full electric mode. It raised the hair on the back of your neck just to look around. The whole place was hyper. You couldn't have wedged one more person in the building. Luckily, the fire marshals didn't show up. In a shootout with 16 lead changes, Sunderlage paced a late Illini rally, tying the game at 60 as Garrett (who scored 16) fouled out, and the Illini took a 71-65 decision that led to a 13-1 conference title.

Starting over

It is with this background that I developed a long love affair with Illinois basketball. It began with pretending I was Andy Phillip and then Johnny Orr. It carried into a spring of trying to guard the perpetual motion guard, Bredar, day after day in offseason drills. That's when I knew where I stood.

So I became a fan again, first as a married student trying out for Lee Eilbracht's first baseball team (failed again), then from afar as a member of the much-traveled Fort Monmouth basketball team in New Jersey, and finally as a sports-writing visitor from The Times in Hammond, Ind.

- Chicago Stadium trips: Memories from the late 1950s center on doubleheaders in which Illinois always seemed to get the best of Notre Dame. Actually, the UI won four of six beginning in 1957, the year the UI basketball world changed when George BonSalle went ineligible and a contending team lost six of its last 10 games.

- Back on top: Yours truly was standing at the upstairs door at McGaw Hall in 1963, ready to return to my seat for overtime or join buddy Jim Whitaker in a race for the car. That's when Illini Bob Starnes made the incredible shot from behind halfcourt to stun a Northwestern team (78-76) that had led the entire way. It was much longer than Andy Kaufmann's shot against Iowa, longer than Nick Anderson's shot at Indiana, and I wonder today: Did anyone else witness all three of those miracles?

- The Hall opens: Ray Gallivan, a backfield teammate of Red Grange, was at the wheel when we made a late dash from Hammond to see the Assembly Hall opener March 4, 1963. Northwestern was again the victim, 79-73, as Dave Downey and his teammates moved toward a Big Ten co-championship. But in our rush, we didn't mark our parking spot and, coming out of a round building, we had to wait until most of the cars had departed in order to locate ours.

- On to Champaign: The News-Gazette job fell my way in the late summer of 1966 as I accepted less money for more fun. Combes had a terrific team that was ready to burst onto the national scene. For my preseason story, Harry actually came to the office, saying he had to make a trip to the bank anyway. For my first flight to Chicago for Big Ten meetings, Harry invited me to fly with him to Meigs Field, which was a bigger thrill than I had imagined. As we descended over the lake, Harry had his fingers tightly gripping the seat in front and his head down. I understood why when the small plane started doing loop-de-loops.

- The Slush Fund: I got a taste of southern racism in witnessing the fan reaction to Illinois' 98-97 win at Kentucky, then ranked No. 3 in the nation. With Rich Jones and Jim Dawson spearheading the team, and nobody outstanding in the Big Ten, I thought it could be a Final Four team. Then came the death blow, the 'slush fund' scandal that revealed improper payments to Jones, Ron Dunlap and Steve Kuberski. We were in Chicago, and I made a mad dash to a hotel for the news conference and was surprised at how upset and confused Combes was. A few days later, there was the chance meeting with Pete Elliott outside the Assembly Hall when he advised that the announcement of him being named athletic director was canceled. It was a chaotic time, a period of great distress, and my chief concern, with stories bursting every day, was not getting whipped too badly by my Courier rival, the great Bert Bertine.

Media mogul

Combes never had a TV show. So when Harv Schmidt succeeded Combes, I talked WICD Channel 15 into letting me moderate a weekly show. It worked all right. Harv was excellent on his feet at the chalkboard. Others must have liked the idea because WCIA Channel 3 offered him more money the next year, and the coach's show has been there ever since.

- Schmidt for president: It took two years for Harv to make a hit, going 19-5 in 1969 and finishing second to Rick Mount and Purdue in the Big Ten. Illini fans went crazy over Harv, rising when he strolled onto the court.

- A wet affair: Northwestern's Wildcats were better at the time, beating Illinois 78-71 up there in 1968. That started a three-game UI losing streak, causing me to write that it was unlikely the Illini would defeat Northwestern at the Hall in late February. When the Illini won, 62-61, Randy Crews and Jodie Harrison were among those who threw me in the shower for 'being all wet.' Writers are seldom allowed in locker rooms these days. Back in the mid-60s, my post-practice interviews with Elliott and his football staff were held while they showered and dressed. With Harv, I often returned home with him for a drink and more talk.

- The Turpin-Tate connection. Jim Turpin was broadcasting Illini games for WILL, the university station, and we were seated near each other in a pair of games at Stanford and Cal before Christmas in 1967. I thought it was during the Stanford game, he remembers it as the Cal game, but in any case he invited me to make some comments. When we got back, he swung $25 a game for me to serve as color commentator. That began a radio relationship that switched to WDWS when he became station manager there in 1980 and continues with the 'Saturday Sportsline' and the 'Monday Morning Quarterback' shows.

- Recruiting backfires: Schmidt's ultimate failure revolved around recruiting. He tried hard but didn't get in-state stars like Jim Brewer, Doug Collins and Jack Sikma, not to mention Champaign's Clyde Turner, and the acquisitions of Billy Morris and Alvin O'Neal blew up in his face. Nick Weatherspoon kept the program going for a while - Spoon was a fierce rebounder and jump-shooter - but his three-year Big Ten record was 18-24. I was shocked when a demoralized captain, Jim Krelle, left the team late in the 1972 season, complaining that the blacks and whites were being treated differently. Later, when Schmidt lost 13 of his last 14 games in 1974, he was obliged to step down.

- My worst run-in: Gene Bartow was an amiable guy who brought a free-wheeling style from Memphis, so it is surprising that I had my one-and-only serious run-in with an Illini basketball coach during his only season in 1974-75. It occurred when Michigan State's Terry Furlow slugged Rick Schmidt. Bartow refused to comment after the game but discussed it on his Sunday show. I took his quotes off the air and printed them. When I boarded the bus for the next trip, he laid into me, noting that his comments could get him in trouble with the Big Ten office. I thought he was going to kick me off. It was a difficult relationship for a while, but I never blamed Bartow for taking the UCLA job any more than I would have criticized Bill Self for going to Kansas. After that incident, when I wrote something I knew Lou Henson didn't like, I just stayed clear of him for a day or so, and he was fine. Lou almost never got upset with writers - although he wasn't happy when Decatur's Bob Fallstrom called for his ouster in the 1980s. He got the same from the Chicago media, but he expected that.

- It wasn't DeVoe: My luckiest story had to do with Henson's hiring. Everybody in the country was printing that Cecil Coleman would announce Virginia Tech's Don DeVoe. Members of our News-Gazette staff had seen DeVoe at the Coleman home. My personal connection at the Chicago Tribune said the Trib was going with the story because the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had it cold. I called the Post-Dispatch, and they were going with it because the Tribune had it. Neither really knew. It was 10:30 p.m., and we had the story prepared for the Sunday morning edition. But being suspicious, I called assistant coach Tony Yates. He wouldn't tell me who the new coach was but emphasized that it wasn't DeVoe. I said, 'Hold on. I'll be at your door in 10 minutes. I want you to tell me to my face.' I drove to his Champaign home, and he convinced me the DeVoe rumor was wrong. We changed our story before it made print, and all the other newspapers wrongly went with DeVoe.

- Remember Rowinski: Henson saw that the Illini needed help and brought in the UI's first junior college recruits, Nate Williams and Mike Washington. And we were encouraged when he broke the Chicago barrier with Levi Cobb and, later, Eddie Johnson. But success didn't come easily, and just when he seemed to be rolling in the early '80s, the Illini blew huge leads in devastating losses to Iowa and Purdue. Who can forget Feb. 23, 1983, when Gene Keady, trailing by 20 points with 12:20 to go, took out Russell Cross and his regulars, and the Illini went scoreless for 9:37 as Purdue subs sparked a 56-54 win on big Jim Rowinski's bank shot with one second left?

- Late losses at Purdue: Henson finished two games ahead of Keady in their series, but his Gill-Anderson team suffered two of the most frustrating defeats at Mackey Arena. Before Henson settled on the strategy to foul with a three-point lead in the final seconds, Kendall Gill left the in-bounds passer, Doug Lee, to double-team at midcourt, and Lee took a return pass to hit a tying trey that led to an overtime victory. Then there was the call by ref Phil Robinson that Turpin and I couldn't figure out. Anderson scored on a rebound putback and could have tied Purdue with a free throw, but the basket was disallowed and he received two free throws. It didn't make sense. I never saw Robinson work another game.

What a trip!

In reflecting, many memories revolve around bad weather conditions .. the long-ago flight to Iowa in those small planes (I preferred Yates' plane because he thought he could land it if necessary) .. bucking Chicago's Big Snow in Jan. 1967 when we walked down the middle of Michigan Avenue and first learned of Bertine's circulation problem .. the all-night bus drive from Michigan .. the tough times getting in and out of O'Hare Field let somebody else cover the games in Minneapolis or East Lansing.

- Worst trip ever: Easily my worst experience dealt with the 1981 Blade-Glass City Classic in Toledo. For some reason, I didn't travel with the team, electing to drive alone on game day in a snowstorm over roads that were snow-packed. It was barely two-lane traffic at times, cars traveling 20 and 30 mph and me needing to pass where it wasn't appropriate. It was foolhardy to pass at all, and when I did I could hardly see. And I just kept rolling. Ten hours later, I rushed up to the arena without a ticket, appearing so desperate and out of breath that they let me in without hesitation, and I joined Turpin two minutes before tipoff. I recall Craig Tucker had a great game (18 points) in a 56-51 win against Bowling Green, but then went 2 for 19 in the title-game loss to Toledo. I still shake when I think about the gambles I made on that drive. By all rights, I should still be in a ditch in Ohio.

- The Second Worst: It didn't look like we'd ever get to Memphis after Christmas in 1990. After a day lounging around the airport with all flights canceled, the players went home to sleep and returned the next morning to similar circumstances. Finally, after Henson talked a grumpy Larry Finch into pushing the game back one day, the Illini traveled ever so slowly by bus. It was tough and arduous, and a weary team managed to reach back for an 84-75 win, Finch complaining afterward that his Tigers, sleeping in their own beds and waiting, would have won if the Illini had showed up when they were supposed to. Oh well, Duffy Daugherty said his Michigan State Spartans would have whipped Dick Butkus and Illinois in 1963 if the president hadn't been assassinated. I didn't believe him, either.

- In a snowbank: I left my brains at home two years ago in driving to Purdue. With cars stacked up in Indiana and not moving, I decided to try a country road and got stuck in a snowbank - in the middle of the road. Ultimately, some C-U guys in white hats got me out, and I reached Mackey in time for the game but missed my pregame interview with Keady. He still asks me about getting stuck in a snowbank.

- Bad day in San Juan: And then there was the excursion to Puerto Rico, where the court was so slick that the players couldn't stand up, and where we left jackets, radios, tape recorders and incidentals on the team bus while the Illini practiced and returned to find that a different bus was picking us up. Rod Cardinal called the station, but no one spoke English and for all his efforts, those items never were returned.

- Talk about bad trips: Some people think the 68-67 loss to Austin Peay was the UI's worst NCAA setback. For me, it was a year later, when Battle, Gill, Anderson and the Illini blew a bunch of late free throws and were nipped by Villanova 66-63. This hurt more because that 1988 team was capable of going a long way in the tournament. Fact is, that team had the talent to knock off anybody. But Henson never seemed to get any breaks at tourney time, losing seven NCAA games by three points or fewer between 1981 and 1990. In many of those games, Illinois led only to see something bad happen right at the end .. like Michigan's tiebreaking putback in the Final Four.

- Peaking at St. Louis: Of the UI's eight straight victories in the Border War, it was the Battle-led comeback on Dec. 19, 1988, that stands out. Norm Stewart had exceptional squads in the late 1980s and was trying everything to win. We joked that he would have traveled by dogsled if it would have worked. It got so bad that he tried to cancel the game, but it had become too big for him to control. Mizzou broke out to an 18-point lead (39-21) on the red-hot shooting of Chicagoan Byron Irvin before Illinois scored the last 11 points of the half. It was a dogfight from there, Doug Smith's dunk giving the Tigers their last lead, 84-83, before Battle and Larry Smith locked it up, 87-84. It was breathtaking.

Thanks for the memories

- Battle battles it out: Nobody worked harder than Cardinal, the team trainer. He also arranged the trips, set up the meals and handled incidentals. And when Battle slipped on a wet spot at the NCAA tournament in Minneapolis, Rod spent all night icing and working with the Illini senior, just as he had with Efrem Winters in Lexington five years earlier. We didn't know what to expect, particularly when Lowell Hamilton sprained his ankle and sat out 19 minutes of the second half against Louisville the next day. But Marcus Liberty and Larry Smith filled in brilliantly, and Nick Anderson scored 24 in a breezing 83-69 win.

- The best game ever: What followed was the most significant Illini victory in the last 50 years. The Minneapolis field was packed with future pros. Illinois had just beaten a team with Pervis Ellison, LaBradford Smith, Tony Kimbro, Felton Spencer and Kenny Payne and now was limping into a showdown with Syracuse's Derrick Coleman, Billy Owens and Sherman Douglas. Illinois was down 25-13, didn't take the lead for good until the last 6:24 and won 89-86 with Battle bouncing back for 28 points. There has been no more courageous Illini performance in NCAA tournament play.

- Stewart deserved T. When Kiwane Garris entered the Missouri game Dec. 22, 1993, he was a 91 percent free throw shooter with one streak of 24 in a row. So when he went to the line with the score 97-97 and the second OT clock at :00, there was Norm Stewart in the middle of the court ranting and raving. He should have been given a technical, but refs Tom Rucker, David Hall and Denny Freund figured the game would be over soon, and they refused to look back. When Garris missed the first free throw, Stewart turned and ran back toward his bench. Then Garris missed again, and Missouri won in triple overtime.

- The funniest T. Henson was always on edge when the Illini played Iowa and was furious with the officiating in 1994 as the Hawkeyes maintained a lead at home. Finally, with 11:41 to go and Illinois trailing 51-44, he called Deon Thomas to his side during a timeout and asked him to carry a note to refs Sam Lickliter, Gene Monje and Tom Clark. The note simply read, 'Iowa 38, Illinois 8.' Those were the free throws attempted by each team up to that point. The refs responded by handing Henson a technical for the second straight year over there. Needless to say, Iowa won .. and that was one of those games where Iowa's Super Fan, sitting directly in front of the broadcast booth, turned around and gave us the finger. Incidentally, even the Iowa administration got in on the fun, putting a set of keys on the message board to help orchestrate a Chevrolet Blazer chant toward Thomas for the mythical Blazer that he never drove.

- Kaufmann's shot: Few games had such an electric atmosphere as on Feb. 4, 1993. The Iowans were emotional because star Chris Street had been killed in a snowy auto accident outside the team motel, and Illinoisans were still unhappy about Iowa assistant Bruce Pearl's part in UI sanctions laid down by the NCAA. When the ball bounced off Thomas' shoulder for Iowa's go-ahead basket (77-75), and the clock showed less than a second, I assumed fate had smiled on the visitors. But after consultation, the refs put a second or so back on the clock, just enough for T.J. Wheeler to fire a long pass to Andy Kaufmann for the 30-foot shot of a lifetime. This was a bigger basket than Starnes at Northwestern or Anderson at Indiana because in those cases the score was tied. In this game, with the ball in the air, the clock had reached :00 and Illinois was behind. It is, therefore, the greatest long shot in UI history.

- Andy misses flight: Kaufmann was a husky fellow who loved to eat. When I received two sandwiches on game flights, I always turned and sent one back to Andy. And that's what I did on the flight to Penn State, except that, to my surprise, he wasn't there. Henson left him behind and hadn't said anything. In interviewing coach Bruce Parkhill at State College, he grimaced: 'This just means Deon will get more shots.' And that's what happened. Thomas paced an Illini victory. Toward the end of the season, the conflicting personalities of Kaufmann and Henson took a toll on both, and Andy's final game (an 85-68 NCAA loss to Vanderbilt in 1993) was a relief to everyone.

Thanks for the memories, Part II

- Unfairly treated: Henson had longtime difficulties with Indiana's Classic Bully, whose accusatory outcries to Big Ten commissioner Wayne Duke over the recruitment of Lowell Hamilton ultimately contributed to Illinois' problems with the NCAA around 1990. The NCAA enforcement staff hardly could overlook three-pronged complaints about the Illini from Notre Dame, Indiana and Iowa, even though all three were later found to be baseless. Irish star LaPhonso Ellis retracted his charges, the telephone tapping by Bruce Pearl with Thomas was baseless and when the NCAA couldn't find anything solid, Illinois was given sanctions for 'lack of institutional control.' It is hard to imagine a more unfair and prejudiced case, Henson paying in part for football infractions by the Mike White regime.

- Scariest game ever: Lon Kruger outcoached Indiana nearly every time they met, sometimes because the Hoosiers self-destructed. This included the 1998 fiasco at Indiana when ref Ted Valentine took on the Classic Bully over a disputed goaltend and rim-pulling incident, and Luke Recker's injury. The crowd became more surly and menacing than any I've ever witnessed. It easily could have evolved into something like this season's Pacers-Pistons brawl. Kruger's Illini always kept their cool, and the Hoosiers lost theirs. Kruger never beat Purdue, but his record against Indiana was 6-2.

- Underclothes needed: We really did run out of clean clothes during Illinois' incredible four-day run in the 1999 Big Ten tournament. With a 3-13 Big Ten team, The News-Gazette contingent didn't expect to be in Chicago past the second game. But with Lucas Johnson inspiring an underdog team, the Illini upset ranked Minnesota, Indiana and Ohio State teams. Everyone in the Illini entourage was astounded .. and by Sunday, everyone was out of clean clothes.

- Six Illini foul out: When, pray tell, have you seen a team lose six players and permit 56 free throws in an NCAA game? It happened at the end of Bill Self's first season in 2001, when Arizona eliminated the fourth-ranked Illini 87-81. I believe, as do most viewers, that coach Lute Olson's public complaints about the roughness of Illini play in an earlier 81-73 win in Chicago contributed to a mind-set that led to this outrage. Lute was Mr. Smoothie in putting one over on the Illini.

- Frank rocks Gophers: I thought it strange when the media voted Cory Bradford the Big Ten's preseason player of the year before 2000-01. Bradford was a prolific arc-shooter, but Frank Williams was a vastly superior playmaker. He could break down defenses with his dribble just like Deron Williams does now. Frank caught grief at times, particularly from the national media, but he was icy in the clutch, and his winning drive-in at Minnesota in 2002 sent that home crowd into shock. The perfectly-timed picture of this in publicist Kent Brown's office, with Williams flying high and the Gopher fans gasping in disbelief, is one of the finest ever taken.

- Self laid groundwork: I view Bill Self's departure differently from many Illini fans. Like Lon Kruger, John Mackovic and other 'professional' coaches, Self is a traveling soldier in the business and saw a chance to take a more lucrative, tradition-rich job located closer to where he wants to live. I think Self deserves praise from Illini Nation for providing the UI with the players Bruce Weber has woven into a national title contender, just as Kruger deserves praise for lining up Brian Cook and the Peorians who helped Self win two Big Ten co-championships.

- Your cheatin' heart: Admittedly this is prejudiced, but following are a half-dozen games where my eyes told me 'we wuz robbed' by shoddy officiating: (1) the 90-88 loss at West Virginia in 1966 when the athletic director apologized for the last shot counting, (2) the first time I ever saw now-respected Steve Welmer work at Indiana, and weekend film review showing 20-odd backward calls that went against Efrem Winters, Scott Meents and their teammates, (3) at Loyola on Dec. 22, 1984, when Alfredrick Hughes was credited with the winning basket after time ran out, (4) the Illini-Kentucky game in the 1984 NCAA tournament in Lexington, (5) the Minnesota game that swung on a late miscall against Chris Gandy, and (6) the aforementioned Arizona game, where six Illini were disqualified for fouls.

- And this team: The fun is watching a direct and honest coach creating momentum with early high-risk games on a variety of courts, getting their attention and fitting veteran athletes into specific, sharing roles. For me, the playmaking of Deron Williams is the essential element that sets them apart. But they wouldn't be where they are if it weren't for Weber and with each starter playing a key role.