LOREN TATE | Whitman proving he’s still the right man at Illinois – Alton Telegraph

Purdue has been a pain for Illinois in the two major sports.

Going back more than three decades to 1994, the Boilermakers have posted winning records of 18-8 in football and 35-21 in men’s basketball in the series against the Illini.

But the Illini won the big one against Purdue when they recruited Josh Whitman from Harrison High School in West Lafayette, Ind., under the shadow of the Boilermaker campus in 1997.

Having completed his 10th year in charge of the Illini athletic program, he has changed the look, the feel and the status of Illinois in the college sports world.

This was a deeply troubled operation in mid-February of 2016 when Whitman came aboard. The budget was a hard-pressed $87 million and running red at the end of the Mike Thomas regime.

Indifference and empty seats marked the revenue sports.

Case in point: There were 12,008, tickets sold for the last home men’s basketball game in 2016 against Minnesota, but not that many actually attended.

On second glance

Division of Intercollegiate Athletic fundraisers at Illinois were fighting rejections in those days because:

• The football team was struggling through what would become 10 consecutive losing seasons (ending in 2022). Whitman “missed” in hiring Lovie Smith, and the turnstile count for three pre-COVID years averaged 23,550, for 20 home games.

•  Updating, coach Bret Bielema has overseen a series of full-season sellouts with 19 wins and bowl victories against SEC opponents the last two years. All seats will be sold for 2026 with seven-game Horseshoe seats at a modest $115.

•  Men’s basketball failed to top .500 in Big Ten Conference play from 2011 through 2019.

•  Updating, Brad Underwood’s team just reached the Final Four, and deserves A-plus for retention, acquisition (Providence’s Stefan Vaaks) and a six-man freshman class that ranks among the school’s best.

•  As with Lovie, Whitman “missed” on women’s basketball coach Nancy Fahey, who left with a Big Ten record of too-memorable 7-77.

•  Updating, Shauna Green has won NCAA tournament games the last two years and is fielding an even stronger team ahead of the 2026-27 season.

Money talks

Follow the Benjamins.

Illinois heads into the 2026-27 school year anticipating over $200 million in budgetary income and outgo, a turnaround marked by massive donor gains.

At the same time, Whitman has maintained a strong working relationship with the UI’s academic side while developing the strongest-ever connection with alumni and friends. The DIA is roaring well past $200 million in facilities improvements since his arrival, with more on the way.

When Congress needed a college spokesman, the lawmen called on Whitman. He serves as chairman of the NCAA’s decision-making Division I Cabinet, formerly the Council, during a time he labels as the most consequential in the history of college sports. He walks the thin line between what’s best for Illinois while also tight-roping the chaotic new NCAA world of player salaries, transfers and geography-defying expansion.

Number crunching

After decades when non-revenue coaches had to deal with partial scholarships, all 450 Illini athletes receive full scholarships, and 223 received revenue distributions last school year.

The financials are mind-boggling, demonstrating the UI has deeper moneyed roots than anyone imagined. The six-year, $300 million fundraising drive ended with a $21 million surplus in 2022, and 12 working fundraisers are busy from Los Angeles to New York.

The $14 million COVID-19 deficit was paid off, and Whitman changed the campus look with the $71 million Smith Football Center, the $40 million Ubben basketball facility, the $15 million acquisition of Atkins Golf Course and major improvements across the board for baseball, softball, soccer, track and on and on. The $100 million Larry Gies gift contributed to endless stadium work, most recently amounting to $40 million for the nation’s largest new videoboard (69 by 252 feet), improved Wi-Fi, lights and sound, and 19 new videoboards and ribbons.

Hard to imagine the past

Whitman’s right-hand man, Howard Milton, has announced a fast-growing philanthropic group called The Investors Society (unrelated to the I-Fund) for another source of tax-deductible donor income.

What’s happening here now couldn’t have been imagined 10 years ago. So, Illinois is actually thriving in a chaotic period that sees coaches elsewhere complaining and leaving, and some universities hitting financial downslides they can’t resolve or recover from.

For those who have fretted about some $20 million required each year to pay off long-term bonds, that amount is now just 10 percent of the budget.

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