Sports editor Jim Rossow has picked 12 of his favorite stories from 2009. The list includes Paul Klee's visit with popular Illini walk-on Bubba Chisholm.

By PAUL KLEE

Long before Bubba Chisholm won the heart of the Orange Krush, before he learned two scoops at Jarling's Custard Cup is heaven on a sweaty July afternoon, before he mailed his own highlight tape to Bruce Weber ..

. Bubba rollerbladed his way into News-Gazette history.

And how many Division I basketball players can say that?

Bubba owned his newspaper delivery route. Those 55 to 60 subscribers knew their News-Gazette would be on the doorstep, on time, just as they prefer.

"Our service was legit," Bubba says.

Some readers wanted their paper delivered in a certain corner of the door, he says. Some would log a complaint if the afternoon edition wasn't there by 3:30 p.m. They never got a chance when Bubba, in elementary school at the time, or one of his five siblings was on the route.

"And if you had no complaints for a certain amount of time, they gave you a trip to Six Flags," Bubba says.

Bubba won the trip, of course, and was named News-Gazette Carrier of the Month.

"I really enjoyed working for The News-Gazette when I was young," he says.

So that's why we like Bubba.

Here's why you should.

"I have a 4-year-old son," says Chad Jones, his coach at Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield. "My son idolizes Bubba. Bubba would play with him after practice all the time."

"He had a 4.0 (GPA at Lincoln Land)," says his mom, Frances. "He never got a B."

"I think most people couldn't do what Bubba does," says Illinois freshman D.J. Richardson. "He goes 110 percent every day and doesn't get to play (in games) most of the time. That would be hard to do."

Andrew Chisholm, a senior entering his second season as a non-scholarship walk-on with the Illinois basketball team, wasn't walking yet when he got his name. Not his given name. The name you'll hear when the Orange Krush chants his name today in the final minutes of Illinois' exhibition game against Quincy University (4 p.m., no TV).

We want Bu-bba.. (Clap, clap, clapclapclap) We want Bu-bba.

How, exactly, did the name come about?

"When he was a baby, everything he saw was a ball," says his mother, Frances. "If he saw a picture, or a person, or anything, he would say, 'Buh-buh. Buh-buh.' "

The name stuck, enough so that members of his own family acknowledge him strictly as Bubba.

"Somebody called the house looking for Andrew Chisholm. My dad said, 'Sorry, you must have the wrong number,' " Bubba says. "And he hung up on him."

Bubba tried to lose the name once, on his first day at Edison Middle School in Champaign. During roll call, the teacher asked if Andrew was in attendance.

"Some of my neighborhood friends were in the same class and they all said, 'His name's Bubba! No one calls him Andrew!' " Bubba says. "So that failed."

A catchy name has its advantages, however. There's a Rudy feel to it, and Bubba jokes the name helped to get Weber's attention during his quest to join the Illini as a walk-on after two seasons at Lincoln Land.

"Coach Weber probably heard my name was Bubba and thought I was 6-5 and could jump. So I didn't tell him I was the 5-11 white kid."

Yes, the name is here to stay.

"Once a Bubba, always a Bubba," he says. "It's gotten me far enough now. Might as well stick with it."

If there's a misconception about Bubba, it's that he's simply a hard-working floor-burner but a so-so athlete. He's actually one of the Illini's best athletes, a 180-pound speedster who finished second in the team's timed mile and needs an extra plate on the weight bar.

Bubba is no scrub-ba.

"Pound-for-pound you could say he's the strongest guy on the team," says UI strength and conditioning coach Jimmy Price.

This offseason Bubba had a team-high 22 reps of 185 pounds on the bench press. The first time former Illini guard Chester Frazier tried to back him down in the post, Bubba didn't budge. "Little man, you're strong," Frazier said.

"Bubba's a rock," Price says.

During his senior season at Central, in 2005-06, Bubba helped the Maroons to a 25-4 record and within one win of their first sectional title in 37 years. The talented roster also featured Spencer Johnson (junior captain at Missouri-Kansas City), Jordan Lee (News-Gazette All-Area Player of the Year) and Verdell Jones III (sophomore guard at Indiana).

"Everybody talks about our team two years ago," Central coach Scott Davis says, "but that team (in 2005-06) was as good or better."

"I still say we were the best team in the state," Bubba says.

That's when Lincoln Land pursued Bubba. He later became an All-Region selection for the Loggers.

"He rarely came off the court for us," says Jones, the coach.

Then came the decision to pass on full-ride academic and athletic scholarships to McKendree University in Lebanon. But to Bubba, there was something larger at stake: his lifelong love for the Illini.

His mother, a member of the Marching Illini, and his father, a student usher at the Assembly Hall who didn't miss a home game from 1976 to '78, both are UI grads. So are his three older siblings. Bubba grew up rooting for Lucas Johnson, Kiwane Garris and Jerry Hester.

To him, it seemed the obvious choice. To others, it seemed bananas.

"He said, 'Dad, I want to try to walk on at Illinois,' " John Chisholm says. "Being the great man of faith that I am, I said, 'Bubba, you're crazy!' "

"I had to try," Bubba says.

That started one of the tougher full-court presses Weber has witnessed. Champaign product Trent Meacham put in a word for Bubba. The family consulted longtime

athletic trainer Al Martindale, one of its neighbors, to learn details

of the walk-on process. Bubba mailed a highlight tape to Weber's office.

"Coach Weber finally said, 'Hey, I know you're a great kid but call off the dogs!' " his dad says.

Bubba never really got word that he was on the team. But one day he got all the notice he needed.

"He walked in and he found a jersey in a locker," his dad says. "That was a very special day for all of us."

"Sometimes when I think about it — like that first exhibition game, when the crowd and the students were cheering for me when I got in the game — I get goosebumps," Bubba says.

"I think why the Krush really likes him is because students can relate to him," says Orange Krush vice president Matt Jones. "To see a student who's like them, they appreciate that."

Bubba's not only a hometown-kid-done-good; he's a kid who knows where to get the goods in his hometown. He frequents Jarling's Custard Cup ("Two scoops of lemon in a waffle cone") and Papa Del's and Zorba's ("We've gone there forever"). He'll offer a local's insider tip on birthday dinners: "Alexander's Steakhouse," he says. "You get a discount."

"The mistake that most people make at Alexander's is that you have to grill your toast before you put the butter on it. Or it just gets soggy. It's a rookie mistake."

Mostly, he's a fun-loving personality who gives everything he has.

His effort extends from the classroom (where the business and finance major earned a 3.88 GPA as a junior), to when he leads the pregame prayer and dunks for the Krush ("Warmups is my time to shine"), to when Weber calls his name at the end of a big win (Frazier once dubbed Bubba "the human victory cigar.")

None of which has gone to his head.

"Last week I went to one of my teachers and said, 'I'm with the basketball team, we'll be gone and I'm going to have to miss a class." She said, 'Oh, how do you like being a manager?' "

Hey, it beats those 6 a.m. Saturdays on the paper route.

"I tried to bike one time and I found it was too dangerous to ride a bike and throw the paper at the same time. Rollerblading was the easiest way to throw it up in the right corner and keep moving," he says.

"Gotta do whatever it takes, right?"