GREEN STREET SPRINGFIELD AVENUE HEALEY AVENUE ILLIN0IS STREET JOHN STREET FIRST STREET SECOND STREET THIRD STREET FOURTH STREET FIFTH STREET GOODWIN AVENUE GREGORY STREET DORNER DRIVE DANIEL STREET CHALMERS STREET ARMORY AVENUE KIRBY AVENUE OREGON STREET GREGORY DRIVE FOURTH STREET LINCOLN AVENUE Main Quad Staley Illini Grove South Quad Football Stadium Stadium Terrace Play Field Daniels Graduate Hall 1010 W. Green St. Illinois St. Residence Hall 1010 W. Illinois St. Lincoln Ave. Residence Hall 1005 S. Lincoln Ave. McKinley Foundation 809 S. Fifth St. Student Dining and Residential Programs building (Ikenberry) 301 E. Gregory Drive Pennsylvania Ave. Residence Hall 906 W. College Court Activities and Recreation Ceneter 201 E. Peabody Drive University YMCA 1001 S. Wright St. Polling places on campus Source: Champaign County Clerk J MICHAEL MIOUX Design Editor Big money in Illinois District 13 By themselves, the three candidates for the District 13 House seat have raised about $1.8 million to support their campaigns as of Oct. 17. But the spending by political action committees and other groups has far outstretched that of the candidates. Over $6.8 million has been spent on campaigning by outside committees, most of this money going toward opposing candidates. The graphic below combines money spent for a candidate and against his opponent as one total under independent committee spending. In total, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is the biggest spender, having poured about $2.8 million into the district, followed by the conservative group American Action Network at about $1.5 million and the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee at about $1.4 million Source: Federal Election Commission SHANNON LANCOR Managing Editor for Visuals SUM SPENDING AS OF 10-17-2012 INDEPENDENT COMMITTEE SPENDING RODNEY DAVIS DAVID GILL JOHN HARTMAN $840,810.01 $936,702.17 $7,993.25 $1,785,505.43 $6,844,974.74 $0 $3,786,826.75 $3,058,147.99 INSIDE Police 2A | Horoscopes 2A | Opinions 4A | Crossword 5A | Comics 5A | Business & Technology 6A | Sports 1B | Classifieds 4B | Sudoku 4B The Daily Illini Tuesday November 6, 2012 High: 46˚ Low: 35˚ The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871 www.DailyIllini.com Vol. 142 Issue 52 | FREE BY GARRETT WILLIAMS STAFF WRITER J ordan Morr is walks through the shaded outdoor apartment complex at Gregory Towers in Champaign. As he approach- es the first door with a medium-sized met- al number posted on its front, he raises a closed fist and knocks lightly three times. Within seconds, a man opens the door. Mor- ris quickly identifies himself as a volunteer with 13th District Congressional candidate A bout $8 million has been spent on the 13th Congressional District race, according to recent Federal Election Commission reports, making it one of the most highly funded House races. As of the most recent Federal Election Com- mission report released Oct. 17, Republican Rodney Davis received more than $1 million and spending more than $840,000. Democrat- ic candidate David Gill also received more than $1 million and spent more than $930,000, while independent candidate John Hartman spent about $8,000 after receiving just about $8,000. Gill had about $118,000 in available funds, Davis had about $272,000 in available funds and Hartman was about $870 in debt. Aside from the funds candidates collected and spent, independent entities also promoted candidates with their own finances. About $7 million was spent independently in this race. Super PACs are one of the outside groups that account for much of the spending on cam- paign ads. Super PACs are expenditure-only committees that promote candidates indepen- dently. The Democratic Congressional Cam- paign Committee has given $2.76 million for advertisements opposing Davis. The Ameri- can Action Network Inc. has spent about $1.48 million on advertisements opposing Gill. Independent spending greatly increased during the month of October. As of Thursday, $5.1 million had been spent independently on this race as compared to $1.8 million spent prior to Oct. 1. At a debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters on Thursday, the candidates Canvassers from both parties pick up eorts in persuading others Total spending of 13th District, US House race tops $8 million ELECTIONS 2012 2012 ELECTION COMES TO A CLOSE BY CHRISSY PAWLOWSKI STAFF WRITER See CANVASSING, Page 3A See 13TH DISTRICT, Page 3A Final push Champaign County has the highest number of voters it has ever had before an election. As of Monday, 19,166 people in Champaign County had voted either early or by an absentee ballot, Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten said. He said about 140,000 people registered to vote in Champaign County. Also for the first time this year, there was an on-campus polling place on campus at the Illini Union. Hulten said there were 1,209 people who voted there. Voters break Champaign County record CAROLYN KASTER AND SCOTT KEELER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS President Barack Obama, left, campaigns outside the Wisconsin state capitol building in Madison, and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks to supporters at the Sanford International Airport in Sanford, Fla., on Monday. Both candidates visited several swing states in a late push before the election. No more talk, let’s vote The most expensive presidential race in American history closes today SEE OPINIONS, 4A
Transcript
GREEN STREET
SPRINGFIELD AVENUE
HEALEY AVENUE
ILLIN0IS STREETJOHN STREET
FIRS
T ST
REET
SECO
ND ST
REET
THIR
D ST
REET
FOUR
TH ST
REET
FIFT
H ST
REET GO
ODW
IN A
VENU
E
GREG
ORY
STRE
ET
DORN
ER D
RIVE
DANIEL STREET
CHALMERS STREET
ARMORY AVENUE
KIRBY AVENUE
OREGON STREET
GREGORY DRIVE
FOUR
TH ST
REET
LINCO
LN A
VENU
E
Main Quad
StaleyIlliniGrove
South Quad
FootballStadium
StadiumTerrace Play Field
Daniels Graduate Hall1010 W. Green St.
Illinois St. Residence Hall1010 W. Illinois St.
Lincoln Ave. Residence Hall1005 S. Lincoln Ave.
McKinley Foundation809 S. Fifth St.
Student Dining and Residential Programs building (Ikenberry)301 E. Gregory Drive
Pennsylvania Ave. Residence Hall906 W. College Court
Activities and Recreation Ceneter201 E. Peabody Drive
University YMCA1001 S. Wright St.
Polling places on campus
Source: Champaign County Clerk J MICHAEL MIOUX Design Editor
Big money in Illinois District 13By themselves, the three candidates for the District 13 House seat have raised about $1.8 million to support their campaigns as of Oct. 17. But the spending by political action committees and other groups has far outstretched that of the candidates. Over $6.8 million has been spent on campaigning by outside committees, most of this money going toward opposing candidates. The graphic below combines
money spent for a candidate and against his opponent as one total under independent committee spending. In total, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is the biggest spender, having poured about $2.8 million into the district, followed by the conservative group American Action Network at about $1.5 million and the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee at about $1.4 million
Source: Federal Election Commission SHANNON LANCOR Managing Editor for Visuals
SUM
SPENDING AS OF 10-17-2012
INDEPENDENTCOMMITTEE SPENDING
RODNEY DAVIS
DAVID GILL
JOHN HARTMAN
$840,810.01
$936,702.17
$7,993.25
$1,785,505.43$6,844,974.74
$0
$3,786,826.75
$3,058,147.99
I N S I D E Po l i c e 2 A | H o r o s c o p e s 2 A | O p i n i o n s 4 A | C r o s s w o r d 5 A | Co m i c s 5 A | B u s i n e s s & Te c h n o l o g y 6 A | S p o r t s 1 B | C l a s s i f i e d s 4 B | S u d o k u 4 B
The Daily IlliniTuesdayNovember 6, 2012
High: 46˚ Low: 35˚
The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871 www.DailyIllini.com Vol. 142 Issue 52 | FREE
BY GARRETT WILLIAMSSTAFF WRITER
Jordan Morr is walks through the shaded outdoor apartment complex at Gregory Towers in Champaign. As he approach-
es the first door with a medium-sized met-al number posted on its front, he raises a closed fist and knocks lightly three times. Within seconds, a man opens the door. Mor-ris quickly identifies himself as a volunteer with 13th District Congressional candidate
About $8 million has been spent on the 13th Congressional District race, according to recent Federal Election Commission reports, making it one of
the most highly funded House races.As of the most recent Federal Election Com-
mission report released Oct. 17, Republican Rodney Davis received more than $1 million and spending more than $840,000. Democrat-ic candidate David Gill also received more than $1 million and spent more than $930,000, while independent candidate John Hartman spent about $8,000 after receiving just about $8,000. Gill had about $118,000 in available funds, Davis had about $272,000 in available funds and Hartman was about $870 in debt.
Aside from the funds candidates collected and spent, independent entities also promoted candidates with their own fi nances. About $7
million was spent independently in this race. Super PACs are one of the outside groups
that account for much of the spending on cam-paign ads. Super PACs are expenditure-only committees that promote candidates indepen-dently. The Democratic Congressional Cam-paign Committee has given $2.76 million for advertisements opposing Davis. The Ameri-can Action Network Inc. has spent about $1.48 million on advertisements opposing Gill.
Independent spending greatly increased during the month of October. As of Thursday, $5.1 million had been spent independently on this race as compared to $1.8 million spent prior to Oct. 1.
At a debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters on Thursday, the candidates
Canvassers from both parties
pick up e! orts in persuading others
Total spending of 13th District, US House race tops $8 million
ELECTIONS2012
2012 ELECTION COMES TO A CLOSE
BY CHRISSY PAWLOWSKISTAFF WRITER
See CANVASSING, Page 3A
See 13TH DISTRICT, Page 3A
Final push
Champaign County has the highest number of voters it has ever had before an election.
As of Monday, 19,166 people in Champaign County had voted either early or by an absentee ballot, Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten
said. He said about 140,000 people registered to vote in Champaign County.
Also for the fi rst time this year, there was an on-campus polling place on campus at the Illini Union. Hulten said there were 1,209 people who voted there.
Voters break Champaign County record
CAROLYN KASTER AND SCOTT KEELER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Barack Obama, left, campaigns outside the Wisconsin state capitol building in Madison, and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks to supporters at the Sanford International Airport in Sanford, Fla., on Monday. Both candidates visited several swing states in a late push before the election.
No more talk, let’s voteThe most expensive presidential race in
American history closes todaySEE OPINIONS, 4A
2A Tuesday, November 6, 2012 The Daily Illini | www.DailyIllini.com
Champaign! Residential burglary was
reported in the 1100 block of West Washington Street around 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
According to the report, three copper alloys were sto-len and one window was dam-aged.
! Theft was reported in the 00 block of Main Street around 3:30 p.m. Friday.
According to the report, one cellphone was stolen.
! A 40-year-old male was ar-rested on the charge of domes-tic battery in the 400 block of West Springfield Avenue around 2 a.m. Sunday.
! Domestic battery was re-ported in the 600 block of West Washington Street around 4:30 p.m. Friday.
According to the report, no arrests were made.
! Burglary was reported at NY Fashion, 301 W. Blooming-ton Road, around 3 p.m. Thurs-day.
According to the report, 152 nonfur articles of clothing were stolen.
Urbana!""Attempted armed rob-
bery and aggravated battery were reported in the 100 block of West Park Street around 8 p.m. Saturday.
According to the report, two unknown offenders attempted to rob the victim while armed with a weapon.
! A 46-year-old male was arrested on charges of resi-dential burglary and posses-sion of drug equipment in the 800 block of East Park Street around 4:30 a.m. Sunday.
According to the report, the suspect is the victim’s neigh-bor. The suspect admitted that he was at a party at the victim’s house. The suspect was in possession of the vic-tim’s stolen property. The sto-len items were returned to the victim and the suspect was taken to the Champaign Coun-ty Sheriff’s Office.
University! A 19-year-old and 18-year-
old male were arrested on the charge of possession of a con-
trolled substance at lot D-15, 1201 W. Oregon St., at 9:30 p.m. Saturday.
According to the report, a patrol officer saw the sus-pects sitting in a car and be-came suspicious of their activ-ity. The police officer searched the suspect’s car and found co-caine.
! Criminal damage to prop-erty was reported at lot E-15 404 E. Pennsylvania Ave., at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
According to the report, a University student reported that an unknown offender had damaged a car parked in the parking lot. The damages were valued at $400.
! Theft was reported at the Activities and Recreation Cen-ter, 201 E. Peabody Drive, at 10 a.m. Friday.
According to the report, a Uni-versity student reported that an unknown offender had stolen credit cards and cash from a wal-let left inside of a secured locker at the location. One of the credit cards had already been used to make an unauthorized purchase.
Compiled by Klaudia Dukala
HOROSCOPES
POLICE
BY NANCY BLACKTRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES
Today’s Birthday Despite chaos from Mercury’s retrograde, you’re in the limelight this year. Use your influence wisely for the greatest impact. Income, status and audience grow steadily, shifting toward educational exploration after June. Stay grounded with exercise, healthy food and love.To get the advantage, check the day’s rating: 10 is the easiest day, 0 the most challenging.
ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 19) Today is a 9 — Kind words empower others. You can solve the puzzle. Rely on a wise partner. Watch out for fouled-up orders through the end of the month. Mercury goes retrograde today.
TAURUS (APRIL 20-MAY 20) Today is a 9 — Consider an outrageous, but unprofitable, request. Hold out for the best deal. For about three weeks, fine-tune your routine at work, and apply creativity. Go with what works.
GEMINI (MAY 21-JUNE 20) Today is an 8 — Private effort pays off, revealing a new view. Your
choice matters. Provide for others. Over the next month, revisit past creative ideas. Your good luck holds. Proceed with caution.
CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 22) Today is a 7 — Accept encouragement without letting a loud person hurt your feelings. Check out an interesting suggestion. Speak out and be counted. Stick to the basics.
LEO (JULY 23-AUG. 22) Today is a 9 — Ask questions. Consider an outrageous possibility. You can afford to fix things; make your home more comfortable. Reaffirm commitments, and balance work with pleasure.
VIRGO (AUG. 23-SEPT. 22) Today is a 6 — You’re most successful over the next month, playing games you know well. Make sure you have all of the facts. Record your choice. Postpone an outing or launch.
LIBRA (SEPT. 23-OCT. 22) Today is an 8 — Don’t bend the rules. If in doubt, ask an expert. A win-win outcome is possible. There’s less urgency and more repetition for the next few weeks. Stick up for your view.
SCORPIO (OCT. 23-NOV. 21) Today is an 8 — Your reputation is growing. Discover forgotten treasures. It’s not a good time to travel, sign or sell. Watch out for misunderstandings for the next three weeks. Revise and refine.
SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22-DEC. 21) Today is an 8 — Review your conclusions. Follow the advice of friends. Postpone negotiations. You already have what you need. Give a little to get a little.
CAPRICORN (DEC. 22-JAN. 19) Today is a 7 — Follow the money trail. Act on reliable information. Ask probing questions. You have valuable resources hidden. Listen carefully. Choose to participate. You matter.
AQUARIUS (JAN. 20-FEB. 18) Today is an 8 — Take a break from routine. Review and resolve career issues; sort, file and organize. Pad your schedule and wallet for the unexpected.
PISCES (FEB. 19-MARCH 20) Today is a 7 — Don’t gamble. Delegate to a perfectionist. Your fans think you’re brilliant. It’s natural to renew old bonds. Postpone travel, and provide excellent service. Vote.
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ELECTIONS2012
expressed their disapproval of the amount of mon-ey spent during the campaign, especially on neg-ative and slanderous advertisements created by outside groups.
“I’ve been lied about,” Gill said. “Negative (or) positive is one thing, (but) false (or) true is another.”
Such lies, Gill said, claimed that he is against Medicare when he said he is not and that he will raise taxes while in reality he said he does not plan to do so.
Davis said he was also affected by the advertise-ments that ran throughout the campaign.
“The fi rst ad that was done in this race was a web ad that was completely negative done by Mr. Gill against me,” Davis said. “This started a path, unfortunately, of us having to respond to those accusations, and you’ve seen the outside money come in from both sides to where sometimes we feel like pawns on the chessboard of the Wash-ington Democrats and Republicans.”
While Davis said these ads run by third party sources have caused him to spend more to fi ght false accusations, he also said spending money on advertising does not have to be negative.
“We began running an ad showing me coaching my JFL (Junior Football League) football team talking about our national debt of $16 trillion,” he said. “It’s running again right now because it’s such an important issue.”
Corrie Proksa, president of the League of Wom-en Voters of Champaign County, said even when money is spent on positive advertising, it should not be necessary.
“You see so many advertisements that at one point it starts to sink in even if you’re trying to block it out,” Proska said.
The Daily Illini | www.DailyIllini.com Tuesday, November 6, 2012 3A
BY TYLER DAVISSTAFF WRITER
The importance of the Uni-versity of Illinois being at the forefront of higher education by connecting the dots between industry, governments and com-munities was emphasized at the Urbana-Champaign Senate meet-ing Monday.
Lawrence Schook, vice presi-dent of research, said she strives to lead this dialogue through UI Labs, a concept he presented for the fi rst time to faculty at Mon-day’s meeting.
A visioning team, appointed by the chancellors of all three cam-puses, is conceptualizing the non-profi t UI Labs. The group was tasked with identifying the Uni-versity’s core competencies and how the it can begin to lead the future, Schook said.
Schook stressed that the plan-ning around UI Labs is more focused on how the lab will move all three campuses forward rath-er than what the functions of the lab are.
“If we really look at this as a 25- to 50-year voyage, identifying the ‘what’ today is really short-sighted,” Schook said.
The lab is envisioned as a self-empowered think-tank to move the University of Illinois and the world forward not only in areas of math and science but also in the humanities and arts, Schook said.
“We need to have our vehicle for empowering our people and our ideas. ... We need to have a future of increased competitive-ness, a hub of innovation,” Schook said. “This is, if you will, a region where great ideas are not only formed, but they’re realized.”
The lab will not be on campus but will involve faculty from all campuses and possibly graduate and postdoctoral students, said Nicholas Burbules, University Senates Conference chair.
However, Schook said UI Labs would still have an affi liation agreement with the University of Illinois.
“(This) would allow us to address both needs — protecting the academy, while at the same time addressing the stakeholder needs of the citizens of the state of Illinois and our communities,” Schook said.
More and more students on the east and west coasts stay in their communities after graduation, Schook said.
“One of my concerns is that our best and brightest students are leaving and then someone at Stanford or MIT is handing off their intellectual property to them, and we need to do that closer to home,” he said.
Schook said the location of the labs is currently being dis-cussed. The mayors of Chicago, Champaign and Urbana have all been receptive toward the proj-ect coming to their cities.
At the meeting, some faculty members raised their concerns at the direction of the project.
History professor Megan McLaughlin said the project seems to be focused on technol-ogy and science.
“The last committee you showed, I believe, had not a sin-gle humanist or artist on it. It was entirely made up of scien-tists and tech people,” McLaugh-lin said. “So in other words, the university of the 21st Century is looking a lot to me like a uni-versity with no place at all for a signifi cant humanities or arts program.”
Schook said the groups vision-ing UI Labs are answering how they will make change, rather than what they will change in terms of research and produc-tion at the lab.
“We have not tried to focus on specifi cs at this time, but have agreement that this is a way we can begin to work together,” Schook said. “I think that’s an incredible step. ... This is our path forward together.”
If the Graduate Employ-ees’ Organization does end up striking this semester, the Urbana-Champaign Senate has promised those students that departments will not dole out any kind of retribution.
The senate unanimously passed a resolution for protec-tion of graduate employees at its meeting Monday. The reso-lution originated in the Illinois Student Senate, where it was passed unanimously on Oct. 24.
Monte Beaty , senator and graduate student, wrote the resolution and clarifi ed during his speech that voting for the
proposal would not mean sena-tors were endorsing the gradu-ate position to retaliate.
“What this resolution does not do is choose sides,” he said. “That would be improper, and that was not the author’s inten-tion. With the suggestions of others and members of body, the language was amend-ed to accomplish the goal of neutrality.”
Members of the senate spoke in support of the proposal and its equal cooperation of both the GEO and the administration “to advance to a timely and fair resolution.”
Carey Hawkins Ash, senator and graduate student, said this phrasing in the proposal puts the pressure on graduate stu-dents as well as administration to see that the University main-tains its standard of excellency.
“We do that by making sure both sides are amenable to each other such that we can make
sure graduates get their needs met, and that undergraduates and the rest of the community can continue to function at the level of prominence,” he said.
Katherine Galvin, assis-tant provost of administration affairs, said she is hopeful a strike won’t happen but has already taken action to ensure disruption to undergraduate students is minimized and that departments are aware of the students legal rights.
“If a strike is called, they have the right to participate and also the right to not par-ticipate, and our departments must respect that right,” she said. “We must ensure no ille-gal retaliation would occur.”
Beaty said the resolution will be sent to the department heads, and contract negotiations are moving forward.
PostSecret author visits campus, discusses newest book
New program aims to see how UI can lead way in future
URBANA-CHAMPAIGN SENATE
UI LABS
BRENTON TSE THE DAILY ILLINI
Michael Andrechak, associate chancellor and vice provost for budgets and resource planning, gives the Urbana-Champaign Faculty Senate a campus budget update during a senate meeting at Levis Faculty Center on Monday.
HASAN KHALID THE DAILY ILLINI.
Frank Warren, author of the New York Times’ best seller, “PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God”, presented a multimedia presentation at Foellinger Auditorium on Monday.
Committee passes resolution but will not endorse GEO’s position to retaliate
“This is, if you will, a region where great ideas are not only formed, but they’re realized.”
LAWRENCE SCHOOK,vice president of research for the University of Illinois
BY YELE AJAYISTAFF WRITER
New York Times best seller Frank Warren came to the University to pres-ent his multimedia presentation, Post-Secret Live, Monday night.
Kappa Alpha Theta was the main co-sponsor of the event along with the Illi-ni Union Board, which was held at Foel-linger Auditorium.
The main concept of PostSecret is for anonymous people to mail their secrets that have never been revealed to War-ren on handmade postcards. There are no restrictions on what secrets people can share and some are then posted on the PostSecret website or used for the PostSecret books.
“I’ve been called the most trusted stranger,” Warren said when describ-ing his experience dealing with people’s biggest secrets.
PostSecret Live is a multi-media pre-sentation Warren has done worldwide and at several college campuses. In his presentation, Warren talked about some of the secrets published in the
book, secrets that were banned from the book and funny, exciting stories he encountered while putting together the publication. Warren also discussed his latest book, “PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God. ”
The event began with Warren sharing his own secrets. He described dealing with abuse and several attempts of sui-cide throughout his adolescent years.
Nicole Vai l, freshman in Engineering, and Cristina Chavez , freshman in LAS, said hearing Warren’s secrets was the best part of the event.
“I also like the part where he shared his own secrets,” Chavez said. “I also liked the part where people had the cour-age to share their own secrets because it just shows how united we all are.”
Warren also talked about his experi-ence creating PostSecret. In 2004, he began walking around Washington D.C. asking people to share their deepest, darkest secrets. After receiving several different responses, he decided to start a website asking viewers to send in their secrets on a postcard.
“I had accidently tapped into some-thing full of mystery and wonder,” he said. “Something I still don’t understand today.”
He fi rst started receiving two post-cards a day. After a month, he was receiving close to a million. Although the book does not publish every single postcard, Warren took the time during the presentation to go through some of the postcards that did not get published.
Warren talked about a few of the deep-est postcards he had received during his career. The topics of those included suicide attempts, abusive relationships, illnesses and death.
“There are two kinds of secrets,” War-ren said when referring to these deeper secrets. “There are the kind we keep from others and the kind we keep from ourselves.”
At the end of the event, Warren allowed the audience members to share their secrets with everyone.
Yele can be reached at ocajayi2@ dailyillini.com.
DAILY ILLINI STAFF REPORT
Champaign police have arrested one man in connection to a report of shots fi red in the area of Fourth and Hill Streets.
According to a Champaign Police press release, Cham-paign Police responded to the area at 12:18 p.m. after witness-es reported seeing at least two groups of males fi ring guns at each other and then fl eeing the area on foot.
Some of the suspects reported-ly entered a residence in the 400 block of East Church Street. Police searched the area and found evi-dence that confi rmed shots were fi red.
Offi cers later located a heavily damaged Dodge Dakota pick-up truck in the 300 block of East Hill Street that struck a residence at the corner of Fourth Street and Hill Street. Police were informed that the driver of the pick-up truck crashed into the residence after shots were fi red and the truck’s
occupants fl ed from the vehicle on foot.
The Champaign Police Depart-ment SWAT team was dispatched to the residence in the 400 block of East Church Street around 1:00 p.m. to locate the one or more potentially armed suspects.
Police secured and searched the residence after obtaining a search warrant and located four hand-guns, drugs and drug equipment. Charles Thomas, 46, was arrested on the charge of possession of a controlled substance and unlaw-ful use of weapons.
Adjacent homes were evacuat-ed and the perimeter streets were closed to vehicle and pedestrian traffi c.
Police suspect the shooting is due to an ongoing dispute between two groups. Police encourage any-one with information to call Cham-paign Police at 217-351-45 45 or call Crime Stoppers at 217-373-8 477, for those who wish to remain anonymous.
Champaign police seek details in apartment shooting
“We do that by making sure both sides are amenable to each other such that we can make sure graduates get their needs met, and that undergraduates and the rest of the community can continue to function at the level of prominence.”CAREY HAWKINS-ASH,senator and graduate student
David Gill ’s campaign. He then looks down to his list of registered voters and asks for one of the residents by name. The man who opened door yells for his roommate to come to the door and invites Morris to come inside while he waits. After about a couple minutes, the roommate arrives and Jordan is able to give him what he calls “his spiel.”
“My name is Jordan,” he says. “And I’m with the Democratic state party of Illinois...”
This is a typical weeknight for Mor-ris, a senior in LAS, one of many stu-dent canvassers for the 13th Con-gressional District candidates. He spends most of his evenings just like this, going door to door, following his script and talking to registered vot-ers. Some nights, he makes calls from phone banks.
“I fight to implore and urge people to get out there and vote and to get informed,” Morris said. “And to make sure whichever candidate they’re vot-ing for will have the same interests as them.”
As the election nears, canvassers for both parties picked up their efforts in persuading others to vote. Both cam-paigns for Congress in the 13th Dis-trict relied on student volunteers in campus towns like Champaign.
Meagan Salis bury is a volunteer coordinator for the Gill campaign and oversees student volunteers in Bloomington.
“We really appreciate our student interns and volunteers because they
are reliable, hardworking and always find ways to go above and beyond to help out,” Salisbury said in an email. “This process is mutually beneficial because students helping out with cam-paigns learn valuable skills that trans-late to other internships and future careers.”
Morris and volunteers like him are often met with different reactions.
“Sometimes you get doors slammed in your face or you get the phone hung up on you,” he said. “But that’s alright because you have people on the oth-er end of the spectrum who are very receptive, and you feel you have con-vinced them to vote for your candidate or just to vote in general, which makes you feel good.”
The Illini Republicans have also been working hard in support of the Rodney Dav is campaign, making calls out of the Champaign Victory Center and going door to door.
Despina Bat son, president of Illini Republicans and senior in LAS, has been working for the campaign. Bat-son said the Congressional race is very important this year and gives Univer-sity students the chance to get involved in this election.
“This is one of the most highly con-tested districts in the entire United States; everybody is zoning in on it,” Morris said. “That’s why you’ve seen millions of dollars in advertisements. I think it’s important that everybody has the chance to vote, and everybody understands that voting is democracy in action.”
Garrett can be reached at gwillms2@ dailyillini.com.
THE ECONOMY HEALTH CARESOCIAL ISSUES FOREIGN POLICY
+ + +FEDERAL DEFICIT
2008: $458B2012: $1.1T
MARRIAGE EQUALITY +
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
1 BILL THAT WILL
RESTRUCTURE U.S.
HEALTH COVERAGE
LIBYA, ISRAEL,
CHINA, IRAN, MEXICO,
AFGHANISTAN, THE E.U.
+ (X1 + X2 + … + Xn)
SEVERAL ISSUES ÷ THE ELECTORATE.
THEORETICALLY, A CANDIDATE CAN WIN WITH JUST 11 STATES,
ROUGHLY 160 MILLION BALLOTS WILL BE CAST, BUT
BUT 9 (SWING) STATES WILL GET THE MOST ATTENTION:
ELECTORAL VOTES TO WIN. IT TAKES 270 OBAMA WON 365 IN 2008
HE CAN LOSE 95 AND STILL BE RE-ELECTED{ {
IN 2008, THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE WAS 6.8%. TODAY, IT STANDS AT 7.9%. FOR COLLEGE GRADUATES, IT HAS REMAINED ROUGHLY THE SAME: ~4%.
NUMBER OF ISSUES =
+ + + + + + + + = 110ELECTORAL
VOTES
HOWEVER YOU ADD OR SUBTRACT THESE NUMBERS IN THIS POLITICAL GAME,
MAKE IT COUNT.
WHAT’S STILL MISSING? THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATES. DEMOCRATS + REPUBLICANS - LIBERTARIANS - GREEN = TWO-PARTY SYSTEM +
ONLY ONE NUMBER TRULY MATTERS TODAY — YOUR VOTE.
The Daily Illini | www.DailyIllini.com Tuesday, November 6, 2012 5A
MARCO AND MARTY BILLY FORE
BEARDO DAN DOUGHERTY
DOONESBURY GARRY TRUDEAU
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16
17 18 19
20 21 22
23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
34 35 36
37 38 39
40 41 42
43 44 45
46 47
48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55
56 57 58 59
60 61 62
63 64 65
DOWN 1 One who knows what it
means to travel 2 Cake decorator 3 Spiced Indian tea 4 Feedback producers 5 Add for good measure 6 Oil of ___ 7 Straight-bladed dagger 8 Home for Ibsen 9 Observed intently10 Locked up11 Furtive look12 Nothing to write home
about13 Airing21 Went 80 or 90, say22 ___ folder
25 Kind of infection26 Pacific island nation27 Toothbrush brand28 “The ___ Home,” 1996
Emilio Estevez film29 Carrying a lot?30 Push away31 Tortellini in ___ (Italian
dish)32 Tear open33 Not glossy, as a photo38 Army barber’s
specialties39 Was obsequious,
informally41 Israeli carrier42 ___ example44 Light, as a conversation
45 Louis Braille or Louis Chevrolet
48 Joins as a couple49 Word repeated before
“the gang’s all here”50 “Cómo ___?”51 Most eligible for service52 Grinding place53 Firehouse fixture54 “What were you
thinking?!”55 Common game show
prize59 Guitar, slangily
PUZZLE BY ETHAN COOPER
The crossword solution is in the Classified section.
ACROSS 1 Like the people on the
Forbes 400 list 5 Mountains out of molehills10 ___ facto14 Restatement?15 First group to get invites16 Like an “Open 24 hours”
sign, perhaps17 It’s impressive18 Former French first lady
___ Bruni-Sarkozy19 “Surely you ___”20 “The Tsar’s Bride” composer23 N.Y.S.E. debut24 Prefix with -logue25 It has its own Grammy
category34 Taken into account in terms
of a container’s weight35 Crosswise, at sea36 Some genetic coding, for
short37 Dramatic cry38 Sneaked39 Do some post office work40 Crony41 Wipe the board clean42 Possible result of doing
questionable accounting43 NASA launch of 199046 Untreated47 Cricket World Cup
powerhouse: Abbr.48 Beginning of 20-, 25- or
43-Across56 Minimal resistance57 Coupling58 Spanish-speaking explorer60 Airhead61 Programme shower62 Operating system since
196963 Leave rolling in the aisles64 Witchcraft trials city65 John, Paul or John Paul
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD
A 30, 60 OR 90 MINUTE MASSAGE
!"#$!"#$%&'%
!"#$%!&'()*+(*()
Every Thursdayin The Daily Illini
readbuzz.com
Your weekend starts with
Buzz
BY BRIAN YUTECHNOGRAPH COLUMNIST
A fter Hurricane Sandy, many companies start-ed charity efforts to help
combat the devastation left in its wake. Beer maker Anheus-er-Busch shut down its Geor-gia plant in order to provide potable water for victims. Veri-zon and T-Mobile signed an agreement to allow roaming across both networks in affect-ed areas. Even telecommunica-tions giant Comcast provided free wireless internet (Wi-Fi) at all of its hotspots for non-Com-cast subscribers on the east coast, at least until Nov. 7 .
It is understandable that people need services, like the Internet, to communicate with their affect-ed loved ones who lost coverage during the storm. But the Elec-tronic Frontier Foundation is ask-ing providers, like Comcast, to take it to another level by perma-nently providing wireless Inter-net for free, and it is also asking owners of wireless Internet rout-ers everywhere to keep their net-works unsecured for open access.
The Electronic Frontier Foun-dation has just launched its Open
Wireless Movement , a program that aims to create a future where wireless Internet is a free resource available to everyone. The movement encourages all Internet service providers (ISPs), small businesses and even ordi-nary home users to keep their wireless networks open so that anyone could connect and use it.
The foundation believes that such a society would lead to a more effi cient system of wire-less Internet and do away with the identifying power of an Inter-net protocol (IP) address, making Internet usage more private. Most importantly, they argue that peo-ple would always have access to the Internet and stay connected, especially in times of need.
While their aim is positive, the movement seems to gloss over several key problems with their plan. Users of the open wire-less system would still have their Internet connection restricted to the location of wireless rout-ers, putting those who do not live in urban areas at a disadvan-tage. And while, in theory, fl oat-ing from IP address to IP address would prevent a user from being tied down to one identifi er and increase his or her privacy, this would make it harder for authori-ties to apprehend cyber crimi-nals by making them even more anonymous.
Even worse, this could result in innocent people being pinned with
crimes wrongfully, simply because the actual perpetrator had used their wireless network. Having all the extra traffi c on your router would also cut your bandwidth and subsequently, your Internet speed.
The movement’s website, open-wireless.org , tries to assuage these worries by answering some frequently asked questions, such as the issues mentioned above. Their responses only provide superfi cial solutions at best; in response to the question “Will opening my network make me lia-ble for other’s illegal activities?”, the movement answers, “We don’t think so.” While it does provide some technical assistance and guidelines to help users looking to join the movement protect their network security while remaining open, it only alienates those less technical-minded.
Most importantly, the founda-tion and movement fail to recog-nize this one basic fact about the Internet that prevents them from getting any traction: The Inter-net costs money. Sure, in times of crisis, everyone is eager to lend a hand and provide charity. But as things settle back down, it will be tough to fi nd anyone who would be willing to provide a free service to others by paying out of their own pocket, especially in our cur-rent economic climate.
Brian is a junior in Engineering. He can be reached at [email protected].
Free, unsecured Internet plan unlikely to be successful
BY LYANNE ALFAROSTAFF WRITER
As the owner of Cream and Flut-ter, a local boutique pastries and confections shop, Amanda Wyatt handles every aspect of the busi-ness. From hiring employees, to baking, to taking photos for the company’s website, Wyatt said every day can be “quite different.”
In 2007, Wyatt and her sister, Trisha Sutton, decided to open their own business as a creative outlet. After Sutton left earlier this year, Wyatt took over as the full-time owner.
“At the time (we opened the shop), the cupcakes were just beginning to be popular so we incorporated those as a large part of the product line,” Wyatt said.
Nestled in the heart of down-town Champaign at 114 N. Walnut St., Cream and Flutter sells prod-ucts ranging from cupcakes to ice cream sandwiches.
Each day, a portion of the staff’s 12 employees begin baking pas-tries no earlier than 7 a.m. The oth-er employees provide the sweets to customers throughout the day.
A seasonal favorite throughout
the fall is the Pumpkin Spice Cup-cake, which is topped with pump-kin spice and the cream cheese frosting that the shop has gained recognition for, according to Wyatt.
“It is a really moist and fragrant cupcake,” Wyatt said. “It has the fall smells.”
As for the focus of the business, Wyatt admits that when she and her sister opened the shop, they wanted to focus more on building a relationship with the community.
“I don’t think it was so much about the product as it was about the style and the kind of engage-ment with customers that we were looking for,” Wyatt said. “The busi-ness has evolved quite a bit since then in terms of our products and services.”
Since the shop’s opening, Cream and Flutter expanded beyond sell-ing cupcakes. Today, the business bakes cakes, cookies and brownies among other products to satisfy a sweet tooth. The shop also offers designs for weddings and parties.
“Our wedding history is one of our biggest areas in the last cou-ple of years,” Wyatt said. “That’s
really fun for us ... every customer is different, every bride has a dif-ferent style.”
According to Wyatt, Cream and Flutter’s clientele is also more diverse, reaching customers out-side of the Champaign and Urba-na areas.
As for the future of her busi-ness, Wyatt expects to work more with the Champaign-Urbana com-munity. Cream and Flutter often works with local schools and arts organizations.
She also hopes to do more design and product work with clients out-side of Champaign.
“Generally, just building some-thing from scratch that you see people like, that they engage with, is really rewarding for me,” Wyatt said.
Lyanne can be reached at alfaro2@ dailyillini.com.
Cream and Flutter sells more than just cupcakes
BY SAHER KHANSTAFF WRITER
A beauty pageant for boys is typically not short of entertain-ment. That’s why annual talent competition Mr. Business has become a source of camarade-rie and laughter for the past six years for the university’s business chapter.
“It is essentially Miss Ameri-ca but in the business school and with guys,” said Dan Hardyman, senior in Business and member of the business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi.
Put on by the University’s busi-ness fraternity Phi Gamma Nu, Mr. Business is an annual talent competition that brings together the business council and the four business fraternities on campus: Phi Gamma Nu, Alpha Kappa Psi, Delta Sigma Pi and Phi Chi Theta. The benefi t, which is in its sixth year, raises money for the Boys & Girls Club of Champaign.
“Mr. Business is basically designed like a beauty pageant,” said Bridget Anselmo, senior in Business, member of Phi Gam-ma Nu and head coordinator of this year’s show. “Each fraternity and business council nominates two members to represent them and the contestants dance, put on a talent show and do Q-and-A for the judges.”
Since it is associated with the College of Business, the compe-tition includes a sales pitch in which contestants team up with their partners from their respec-tive organization and have a few minutes to market a miscella-neous object to the audience. This brings the business aspect into the show, but is still done in comedic fashion.
The contest has nine judges — seven corporate sponsors from
business organizations, one Col-lege of Business representative and one Boys & Girls Club rep-resentative. There will also be 10 Boys and Girls Club members at the event.
There are 10 contestants in the competition, two people from each fraternity and the business coun-cil. Although the fi ve organizations differed in how they chose their nominees, they all chose individ-uals who they believed best rep-resented their chapters and are not afraid of stepping out of their comfort zones.
“You have to be a good face for your chapter and someone you can trust on stage, but primarily some-one who can entertain the crowd while bringing awareness to the charity,” said Joe Quass, junior in Business and a contestant repre-senting Alpha Kappa Psi.
The event is known for being a hilarious affair with the boys doing ridiculous and outrageous performances.
“I am known in my fraternity for being very theatrical and sassy so that is why I think I got nomi-nated,” said Alec Shimon, senior in LAS representing Phi Chi Theta.
Shimon said his talent will have elements of hip-hop dancing mixed with a video sketch, which he said is “‘Mean Girls’ meeting ‘The Hunger Games.’”
“My favorite moments from the past are the opening dances and the talent portions,” Shimon said. “I’m going to be escorted in by four guys carrying me on a board to the song ‘Milkshakes.’ I just want to do something outrageous.”
The girls from Phi Gamma Nu compile the music for the opening dance sequence, choreograph the entire dance and emcee the show, Hardyman said.
Even people who believe they
don’t have any conventional talents can fi nd ways to be entertaining.
“Because I have no actual tal-ents, I am going to be doing a paro-dy of Napoleon Dynamite’s talent,” Hardyman said.
On top of being a entertain-ing philanthropy event, Mr. Business also brings solidarity among the business chapters at the university.
“It’s a way to get all the fraterni-ties integrated and an event to get us all to hang out together because we are segregated, but we recog-nize that we are a collective unit within the College of Business,” Quass said.
“Practicing for the dances, which the 10 contestants have been doing for a month now, brings a sense of camaraderie among the boys,” Anselmo said. “Although it is a competition and last year’s winner was from PGN, the boys have bonded with people in the various organizations, and it is fun to get everyone together.”
Quass said the atmosphere in the room is full of pride in one’s organizations, but brotherhood is prominent among business stu-dents. It is also ultimately an infor-mal, fun event where the audience is very involved.
Mr. Business will take place Nov. 7 in Greg Hall in Room 112 and is open to the public. The doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 at the door.
“There is always a little bit of healthy competition between all the organizations, and this was just a lighthearted way of fi nding the ‘ultimate business student’ on campus, while raising money for a good cause,” Anselmo said.
W ith a variety of tablets on the market, such as the Micro-soft Surface, Amazon Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble Nook
and Apple iPad models, it may be hard for one to decipher which is the right device for them. To add to one’s confusion on which tablet to choose, Apple has released a new tablet to the market: the iPad Mini.
On Oct. 23, Apple announced the iPad Mini release at its event in San Jose, Calif., which was stream lived. The prod-uct weighs 0.68 pounds and is 7.87 by 5.3 inches . The Wi-fi version of the device was released to the public on Nov. 2.
“I’m really impressed with it,” said Tim Braun , director of operations at the Illini Tech Center and Illini Media employee. “While that big screen (of the original iPad) is nice and is still right for some people, I think this one will attract a whole new crop of people to the iPad.”
According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, Apple sold 2 million to 2.5 million Minis during the launch week-end, compared to the 3 million third-gen-eration iPad models sold in March of this year during its launch weekend. The pre-vious estimate for Mini sales was 1 mil-lion to 1.5 million .
The Illini Tech Center prepared for the launch by opening an hour earlier on Nov. 2. Although Braun couldn’t say exactly how many iPad Minis they sold on open-ing morning, he did say the location had “sold a couple so far” as of about 9 a.m. Friday morning.
Braun said that one of the factors draw-ing people into purchasing the iPad Mini is its low price, which starts at $329.
“This is the least expensive iPad Apple’s ever offered — it really drops the entry level price for an iPad,” Braun said.
Apple is marketing the iPad Mini under the catch phrase “every inch an iPad.” Braun said that other than the “smaller form factor, lighter weight (and) lower price point,” the iPad Mini has “about the same capabilities of the iPad 2.”
“I do think that a lot of people will real-ly like the lighter weight and smaller form factor (of the iPad Mini),” Braun said.
David Neece, a University lab tech-nician and researcher for the U.S Department of Agriculture, is one of those people. Having been an Apple customer since the mid ‘90s, Neece said he waited for Apple to come out with a device like this for some time.
“I wanted an iPad for a while and they were just a little too big, I thought,” Neece said. “I was looking for something a little bigger than the iPod Touch, but smaller than an iPad.”
The lighter and more easily mobile aspect of the iPad Mini is what surprised Michael Williams the most when he fi nal-ly got to see the new device for himself at the Illini Tech Center.
“The one thing that I think really jumped out at me was the weight,” said Williams, director of learning technolo-gies at the College of Education. “Having used the iPad one, two and three, (it) kind of blows me away how light it is.”
Williams explores new technologies for use in college and K-12 classrooms.
“We partner with and consult with (schools) any time we have something, especially like this, that we feel could have an impact in the classroom,” Wil-liams said. “Our job is to sort of get out there, test it out, put it through the pac-es, and make some bigger recommenda-tions to the way we might use it in the classroom.”
Since the original iPad’s release in 2012, the tablet has been infl uential in schools across the country.
According to an article on usnews.com, Apple announced during its “quarterly earnings call on July 24” that they had sold “1 million iPads to high schools and colleges, doubling its iPad sales to schools during the same quarter a year ago.”
The iPad Mini could have a signifi cance impact in schools and colleges, just like the iPad, Williams said.
“I think the size, the weight and the price hits a point that starts to make it more affordable for schools,” Williams said.” “Schools are always looking for bet-ter ways to get technology in the hands of their students (and) this I think is one way.”
As for why Apple is such an infl uential company in the technology world, Braun said it has everything to do with Apple’s cohesiveness.
“I think Apple’s strength is that they create the hardware and the software themselves,” Braun said. “They design both to work together beautifully and it enables then to create a more integrative experience.”
“I think this one will attract a whole new crop of people to the iPad.”TIM BRAUN,director of operations of the Illini Tech Center
Apple’s iPad Mini expected to attract a whole new crop of people
The owner of Cream and Flutter, a bakery located in downtown Champaign, focuses on building a relationship with the community. Turn to 5A for more on their Pumpkin Spice Cupcake, this week’s Dish of the Week.
Where there was once hysteria, there’s now silence.
After years of dwindling fan support, Illini Madness finally vanished last sea-son, and nobody raised a finger.
For the record, if Illinois can orchestrate a well-orga-nized and well-supported midnight madness, first-year basketball coach John Groce wants it to happen.
That’s now a much bigger question than it used to be, but his desire to ignite the Illini fan base is there.
On Friday, Illinois will enter its third straight season without an Illini Madness at Assembly Hall. Aside from a poorly received practice behind the south endzone during halftime of an Oct. 12, 2008, football game at Memorial Stadium, Illinois basketball hasn’t had more than 10,000 fans at a preseason opener since 2007.
Midnight madness isn’t what it used to be. Midnight madness started as a mile-long midnight run to ensure that Lefty Driesell’s 1971 University of Mary-land hoops team kicked off the season at the moment the NCAA allowed prac-tice. Today, it is now one of college sports’ greatest marketing stunts.
Just ask Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo, who performs most of the stunts.
From major-conference midnight madness heavy weights like Kentucky, Syracuse and Michigan State to Daven-port University — where a video went viral this year when an assistant coach proposed to the school’s dance instruc-tor while dressed as the school’s mascot, Pounce the Tiger — it’s generally assumed that if the event is done right, it can be a positive way to secure recruits, build camaraderie with a fan base and generate excite-ment for the upcoming season.
While it’s only Jenny Larson’s second year as Assis-tant Athletics Director of Sales and Marketing for Illi-nois athletics, she worked as the assistant marketing director for Assembly Hall for seven years. She’s been waiting for a green light to plan a midnight madness for quite some time.
At the tail end of former Illini coach Bruce Weber’s tenure, the marketing department met with the coaching staff each year and was simply told it wasn’t time for a big event. The honeymoon from the Illini’s run to the 2005 Final Four was over, and the team hadn’t made it past the second round of the NCAA tournament since 2005-06,
missing postseason play altogether in the 2007-08 season.In 2009, a crowd of just 7,632 fans showed up for Illini
Madness at Assembly Hall, and the event was relegated to Huff Hall, where seating restrictions only allow for 3,000 fans. It hasn’t recovered since.
“There’s no question team success has to factor into it and how much money we’re going to budget into it,” Lar-son said. “As your success kind of trails off, fans aren’t as excited and don’t want to come to those kinds of things. That’s kind of why the last four, five years we’ve just kind of tapered it off, and it just hasn’t been what it has been in the past.”
Larson makes a valid point. First-year Nebraska head coach Tim Miles is the new coach of the only BCS uni-versity, aside from Northwestern, that has never won an
NCAA tournament game. He didn’t feel his program was ready for a major mar-keting venture, and he wanted to wait until it was worth the time and money to draw excitement.
But even in the darkest of times, Illi-nois basketball has never been deemed a lost cause.
Among all the turnover of getting acclimated to the new program, Groce still wanted a midnight madness. As the coach at Ohio University, Groce ran Hoops Hysteria, which he said was well attended and wildly successful at gener-ating excitement.
When he arrived at Illinois, Assem-bly Hall was already booked for the first night of practice. The contract for the Bulls-Cavs preseason game on Oct. 12
was already signed, and logistical problems with doing both in one night caused the marketing department to drop the idea.
Both Groce and Larson said they expected a midnight madness event to return to Illinois within the next two years, but the planning would need to start soon. Larson is currently looking into planning a practice on the Quad when students return to school next fall, but events like midnight madness would take a full year to plan.
If Groce and Larson are looking for a prime example of a well-run event, they need not look outside the con-ference, where Tom Izzo is still waiting for the day his wife’s imaginary boyfriend finally kills him.
Fifty-seven-year-old men with families and comfort-
Soccer’s late-season spurt pays off with NCAA tourney bidBY CHARLIE MANIATESSTAFF WRITER
If you saw the Illinois soc-cer team before the NCAA tournament selection show on Monday, you would have never guessed it lost to Ohio State in Sunday’s Big Ten Tournament championship.
The Illini players were relaxed and joking around, seemingly unaware of the fact that, though unlikely, they could be snubbed from getting a bid in the tournament.
But that is the new mentality that the Illini gained as the regu-lar season winded down. After tak-ing down two top-25 teams in their past five games, the Illini are con-fident in what they can do. In fact, some felt like it was not a matter of if they would be picked, but when.
“I wasn’t too worried. I had a lot of good feelings about get-ting in and we heard that we we’re going to be alright from some coaches so it made us feel better,” senior forward Niki Read said.
The committee felt the same way as Illinois, giving the team an at-large bid to play Missouri in Columbia, Mo. this weekend. With the slump that the Illini experienced earlier this season, they were just happy to hear their name get called.
“Because of the up and down we had earlier this season, we weren’t going to be too picky,” Read said. “We just wanted to get in and it didn’t matter who we played.”
Throughout most of the sea-son, Illinois could not beat a
ranked opponent and even lost games that it was favored to win. Without a statement win, the Illini knew that if they con-tinued to play like they had, they were in great danger of missing the postseason.
The Illini got hot at the right time, though, and defeated then-No. 24 Michigan and No. 3 Penn State over the course of a four-game unbeaten streak. The 1-0 upset of Penn State was the first time the Nittany Lions were shut out all season. Despite losing to Ohio State in the tour-nament championship, Illinois is still confident in its ability to make a run.
“Definitely the fight and hav-ing the belief that, no matter what happens in a game, we can come back,” junior for-
ward Megan Pawloski said when asked what they would need to carry over from this past week-end. “We just didn’t have enough on Sunday, but I think it gave everybody on this team the belief that we can beat anyone out there.”
Illinois played Missouri to a 1-1 tie last season in an exhibi-tion match in Columbia, so the team knows a little bit about what to expect when it travels there this weekend.
“It’s a good team, it’s a team that’s extremely athletic. (Mis-souri is) certainly going to put us under pressure and we’ll have to deal with that,” head coach Janet Rayfield said. “We’ll do a lot of film studying this week to
Y ou probably haven’t heard of Michael Young. It’s OK. There’s no reason you should have.
Young is a senior at Freed-Hardeman Uni-versity (you probably haven’t heard of Freed Hardeman, either. It’s a small private universi-ty in Henderson, Tenn. Haven’t heard of Hen-derson? Well, you get the point). Young is the starting point guard for the Lions, the No. 12 team in the polls for the NAIA (similar to the NCAA’s Division III in competition).
You haven’t heard of Michael Young, but on Oct. 25, Young and his teammates led a Mid-night Madness event at Freed-Hardeman in front of 200 fans (about 10 percent of the stu-dent body) to drum up excitement for the com-ing season.
That’s 200 more fans than Illinois — a her-alded basketball program boasting a rich his-tory peppered with memorable teams and names and a student population around 40,000 — had turn out for Midnight Madness this year because the program elected not to hold the event.
Freed-Hardeman’s Midnight Madness, as expected, pales in comparison to the upper echelon NCAA programs. Kentucky spent between $250,000 and $300,000 on Big Blue Madness this year, with more than 20,000 fans in attendance. Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo delights crowds of 15,000-plus each year with dazzling entrances.
And while those are certainly extreme examples that most college programs can only dream to replicate, there is no good reason for Illinois not to hold its own version.
Multiple explanations have been tossed out by the Illinois coaching staff and marketing team to defend the absence of the season-open-ing kickoff. The two most frequently men-tioned are the need for a productive first prac-tice and a date conflict — by the time first-year head coach John Groce was hired, Assembly Hall had been contracted out for a Chicago Bulls preseason game.
Both of those justifications are flawed. Let’s take a look at them one at a time.
I don’t buy the argument that the Bulls game was an insurmountable obstacle to a midnight madness event. If anything, it was an incredible opportunity to continue the market-ing of Illinois sports to Chicago-based fans and athletes. The Chicago area is the hotbed for recruiting in all sports, basketball in particu-lar. Isn’t a large part of the marketing strategy behind the athletic department’s “Our State. Our Team,” slogan to keep talented Chicago recruits feeling pride in their state school? The first question Groce dealt with at his introduc-tory news conference had to do with how he would recruit the Chicago area.
The program missed a huge opportunity to capitalize off the presence of a Chicago Bulls team that has created as much buzz in the past few years as any team since the Michael Jor-dan era. On college campuses everywhere, midnight madness is often held in tandem with other events, like volleyball matches. Jenny Larson, assistant director of sales and mar-keting for the Division of Intercollegiate Ath-letics, said Illinois had hoped to hold such an event but ran into “snags” with inviting fans into the gym before the Bulls game ended. But the issues could not have been so challenging to work around that it was worth missing out on marketing the Illinois team, program and brand to thousands of passionate Chicago fans. Finding a way to involve the Bulls brand with the season-opening kickoff for Illinois would have been invaluable.
Second, as our good friend Allen Iverson taught us, practice is important. Nobody would argue it isn’t, and the first official practice of the season is perhaps slightly more so than most. But that blow is softened significant-ly by the new NCAA rule that allows coaches to work with players, once every week, who are taking classes over the summer. Also, the impact of losing one practice — even for a team with a new head coach — is insignificant when weighed against the positive outcomes from midnight madness. The event would give potential recruits a chance to get a look at what Illinois basketball is all about: the tra-dition, the passion and the fans. And it could
Illinois’ sports marketing is missing out on opportunities
DANIEL MILLER-MCLEMOREBasketball columnist
See MILLER-MCLEMORE, Page 3B
See BASKETBALL, Page 3B
See SOCCER, Page 3B
MIDNIGHTM A D N E S S
DAILY ILLINI FILE PHOTO
The Illinois men's basketball team scrimmages during Midnight Madness held at Huff Hall on Oct. 15, 2010. Illinois has not hosted a midnight madness event since 2010.
1999-002000-016,000 and 8,000 in attendance following home football games, respectively
2001-022002-032003-044,000 in attendance for Friday night events at Huff Hall, called Illini Madness beginning 2001-02.
2005-0613,405 in attendance, including former Chicago Bulls’ announcer Ray Clay and a performance by Chicago band The Bucket Boys
2004-0510,000 in attendance, Illinois’ new four-sided video board showcased for first time
2006-0712,000 in attendance, including “Illini Entourage” of former UI stars Kendall Gill, Kenny Battle and Stephen Bardo, former manager Ryan Baker, and Entourage star Jeremy Piven on court
2007-0812,000 in attendance wearing pink Fighting Illini basketball t-shirts to raise cancer awareness
2008-0962,870 fans played at haftime, after the game
2009-107,632 fans stayed following a volleyball match withMinnesota
2010-113,000 in attendance at Huff Hall
SOURCE: FIGHTINGILLINI.COM
2011-124,000 in attendance at Assembly Hall for the Orange and Blue scrimmage
2012-13attendance unknown at Assembly Hall for the Orange and Blue scrimmage
Timeline of Illini Madness attendanceFor the second straight year, Illinois decided against hosting a midnight madness event to introduce the season. As recent as three years ago, midnight madness was held at Assembly Hall. It was then moved to Huff Hall, a smaller venue, until it eventually died out. Below is a history of Illini Madness.
Illini skip out on preseason event for 2nd straight year BY ETHAN ASOFSKY
SENIOR WRITER
“There’s no question team success has
to factor into it and how much money
we’re going to budget into it.”
JENNY LARSON,Illinois athletics assistant director of
sales and marketing
MICHAEL BOJDA THE DAILY ILLINI
Nicole Breece watches the NCAA soccer tournament selection show Monday afternoon at the Irwin Academic Center with her teammates. Illinois plays at Missouri in its first-round match Saturday.
2B Tuesday, November 6, 2012 The Daily Illini | www.DailyIllini.com
Thanks to Illinois’ loss to Ohio State last weekend, President Barack Obama
is going to be re-elected.That statement was a bit
overdramatic, but some peo-ple genuinely think it’s true. There’s even studies to prove it.
Gregory Korte of the USA Today wrote an article that discusses how college football wins by a favored team could boost the incumbent’s presi-dential vote. The effect could be 1 or 2 percentage points in the county surrounding the college. So, it would only real-ly make a difference in swing states.
The article focuses on how the Illinois-Ohio State game was particularly impor-tant because the Buckeyes’ win was projected to raise Obama’s vote by approximate-ly 2.5 percent in Franklin County. This is because a win puts voters in a better mood, and therefore, they are more likely to see the incumbent in a brighter light.
USA Today also published a list of well-known NBA players and coaches and what campaigns they donat-ed money to, stating how the front-office staff is balanced between Obama and Mitt Romney, while the players and coaches seem to favor Obama.
I’ve seen tweets and Face-book posts in which people say they will vote for whoev-er stops the NHL lockout. Yes, I believe and hope those are jokes.
According to an article in the Sports Business Journal by Bill King and John Ourand, political campaigns were investing large sums of money into airtime on local sports networks, specifically in swing states. The article says how the majority of slots were bought during NFL games, the Olympics and college football games.
The fact that these theories and efforts may prove suc-cessful seem ridiculous to me. Sports should not have any influence over election results.
Sports stands alone as a game and adventure that brings people together. Cor-rupting the sporting world with politics and letting that distract from the purity and beauty of the game rips it apart.
It is undeniable how sports and politics are intertwined, but you can argue that for anything. It must be respected that political figures endorse major sporting events and that sports can do wonders for building national pride, like the “Miracle on Ice.”
However, it is when the poli-tics begin to overwhelm the essence of sport that trouble brews. Nothing depresses me more than thinking about the 1936 Olympic Games, which were dubbed “Hitler’s Olym-pics.” The games took place in Germany, and the Nazis exploited the Olympics to por-tray a peaceful Germany and attempt to build Aryan superi-ority. It’s also disheartening to remember how the U.S. team boycotted in 1980 to protest the Soviet War in Afghanistan. The Olympics are designed to build unity, yet politics can break through any foundations.
The focus in sports should remain on talent and coach-ing, on fans and team spirit and on building individuals with a lifelong love for the game. This should be kept separate from politics. Although winning or losing a game may mess with your mindset, it is important to focus on the political matters on hand and what the future of the world will be.
There will be more lockouts. There will be sports scandals. There will be corruption among officials, players and coach-es. Maybe these issues will improve based on a country’s economic position, but they are not of enough value to be used as a deciding factor in any vote.
There are more important political issues at hand than wondering if a president will lead the country to an Olym-pic bid, do anything to stop the NHL lockout or increase athlet-ic funding.
The focus needs to be on a president’s concrete campaign, not influenced by an entirely separate realm.
Use sports as an escape, instead of another catalyst to make an excuse for political decisions.
Emily is a graduate student in library sciences. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @EmilyBayci.
Never use sports as a political tool
BY SEAN HAMMONDSTAFF WRITER
For a second straight year, the Illinois football team has lost six games in a row. The difference between this year’s team and the 2011 squad is that this year’s Illi-ni don’t have six wins on their record to boast. Their hopes at a school-record third straight bowl appearance are dashed. And with a 5-4 Minnesota team coming into Memorial Stadium on Sat-urday, there’s no guarantee that the losing streak will end at six.
The 52-22 loss to Ohio State over the weekend was disheart-ening, but the Illini (2-7, 0-5 Big Ten) showed more life than they did in Michigan’s 45-0 drubbing three weeks prior. Illinois head coach Tim Beckman doesn’t want his seniors’ last win in an Illini jersey to be the 44-0 victory over Charleston Southern.
“It’s not for me,” Beckman said in his news conference Monday. “We’re in this game for the play-ers because that’s what this game is about. We wouldn’t be here, none of us, if it weren’t for the players. I want these seniors to win. I think they need to experi-ence what it’s like to win again in the Big Ten.”
Beckman says his job is about the players, and he was certain-ly glad to see his former players at Toledo making headlines this week. Coming off a bye week, Toledo jumped into the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2001. The 8-1 Rockets’ only loss came in their first game against Arizo-na, and on Oct. 20, they knocked off then-undefeated Cincinnati.
“Those are my boys, those are my sons,” Beckman said. “Those kids that are playing there now were all a part of what we’re try-ing to get established here now. I’m proud of them and I’m going
to tell them just as I always do: Keep winning, keep working to win.”
Even in Toledo, Beckman nev-er lost more than seven games. Illinois’ next two opponents, Min-nesota and Purdue, have a com-bined 1-9 record in Big Ten play, and Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill, like Beckman, got his FBS head coaching career started in the Mid-American Conference.
After a three-win 2011 season,
Kill has nearly doubled Minneso-ta’s win total in his second year at the helm. The Golden Gophers, who have not been bowl eligible since 2009, moved quarterback MarQueis Gray to wide receiver this season to get him more touch-es in open space.
“They’re a pretty explosive offense,” Illinois defensive back Ashante Williams said. “It will be another tough challenge for the defense. It’s sort of like prepar-
ing for Braxton (Miller). He’s a mobile guy. MarQueis can get the ball in his hands and make guys miss.”
Williams said he hasn’t watched enough film to decide whether Gray is a better quar-terback or wide receiver. Gray will be a challenge to guard, and Beckman expects the Gophers to be as tough as their coach.
“(Kill) is a guy that fights every day of his life,” Beck-
man said. “His football pro-gram is run just like his life is. You know that what he does is the reason why the success at Minnesota has come this year.”
If Beckman wants to see simi-lar improvement in his team, it would start with breaking this losing streak.
The Matt Bollant era got off to a strong start with a 52-point vic-tory during Illinois women’s bas-ketball’s first exhibition game Oct. 30. In their second and final exhibi-tion Tuesday, the Illini will try to continue their success when they host Concordia University.
Illinois hasn’t played two exhi-bition games since former head coach Theresa Grentz’s final sea-son in 2006-07. Head coach Bol-lant said he decided to schedule two exhibitions “to get (the play-ers) believing that this system is the right system for them.”
After Illinois dominated both ends of the court in an 89-37 vic-tory over NAIA opponent Mar-ian University, it shouldn’t take much persuading.
“We just want to win,” redshirt junior Amber Moore said. “We have nothing to lose, so buying into his system is work-ing really well.”
Moore, red-shirt junior Ker-sten Magrum and seniors Adri-enne GodBold and Karisma Penn all came in as a part of the No. 3 recruiting class in the nation four years ago. The class did not find success under former head coach Jolette Law’s system, going 39-57 the past three years.
“I’m really glad that we have two exhibitions games,” Moore added. “So we can get a feel of how it is playing under (Bollant’s) system.”
Their new coach stresses a more aggressive defense.
“One thing that Coach has tried to teach us is to be aggressive and pressure the ball and force turn-overs, so we’ve been working on that and trying to get better on that,” Moore said.
The Illini certainly made their coach’s wish come true during their defensive smothering of Marian. Illinois forced more turn-overs (40) than it allowed points and rebounds (37 apiece).
Bollant preaches aggression in his dribble-motion offense as well.
“I’m proud of getting 39 free throws,” Bollant said. “That’s a lot of free throws for an exhibition game. We were attacking the rim really hard and taking it at peo-
ple. We say a lot of times the most aggressive team wins, and most of the time, the most aggressive team gets to the foul line as well.”
Illinois shot 64.1 percent from the charity stripe, converting 39 attempts into only 25 points.
“If you shoot 39 free throws, free-throw shooting is going to be really important to your team,” Bollant said. “Obviously, it’s some-thing that we’re going to have to work on and take pride in.”
Penn was one of the main con-tributors to the poor performance at the foul line. The 6-foot-2 for-ward went 7-for-13 on free throws, but that was one of the few down spots for the senior. Penn fin-ished the game with 24 points, 16 rebounds, seven steals and
two blocks. She was also able to rebound her own miss four times.
S o ph o m o r e point guard Alex-is Smith jump-started the team in the first start of her collegiate career after playing only 107 minutes last sea-son. She finished with 19 points, five assists and
four steals.Smith and Penn will have to
run a different offense Tuesday against Concordia’s zone defense. Bollant said he wants to use Penn’s size and post dominance to break the zone.
In addition to free-throw shoot-ing, one area the Illini may seek improvement in is depth. Illinois only used a seven-player rotation for most of its first exhibition and dressed only eight. Injuries to Kierra Morris and Nia Oden, as well as GodBold’s academic ineli-gibility, limited the Illini.
Bollant said last week that he expects Oden to be back for the game against Concordia. Oden will provide another post player to the trio of Penn, Magrum and fresh-man McKenzie Piper.
After Tuesday’s exhibition, the Illini will open their regular sea-son Sunday against Evansville.
“It’s so exciting to know we started off the season so strong,” Smith said. “And I’m excited to see what’s next.”
Illini optimistic about exhibition game under new coach
Beckman aims to end Illini’s 6-game skid
BY DAN BERNSTEINCONTRIBUTING WRITER
The Illinois wrestling team recorded 14 pins and seven tech-nical falls at the Loras Open on Saturday in Dubuque, Iowa, as sev-en wrestlers won their respective weight classes. To go along with the seven titles, five other Illini wrestlers finished in the top four.
In the gold bracket, the Illini were led by first-place finishes
from redshirt freshman Dominic Olivieri (125 pounds), senior Daryl Thomas (133), redshirt freshman Steven Rodrigues (184) and junior Tony Dallago (184). Dallago led the Illini by recording four pins, including the fastest pin of the tournament in 23 seconds. Thom-as recorded bonus points in three matches, while Olivieri won all five of his matches by decision. Rodrigues won his title by win-
ning four major decisions to go along with a pin that sent him to the semifinals.
“I think the guys wrestled hard,” head coach Jim Hef-fernan said in a press release. “Some guys like Olivieri showed a lot of improvement and guys scored a bunch of bonus points, which is something we need to continue as the year progress-es. Overall, it was a good start
for an early season tournament.”Along with the four first-place
finishers, Logan Arlis (133) and Jackson Morse (165) both took home second-place finishes in their respective weight classes.
In the silver bracket, all five Illi-ni wrestlers earned top-four fin-ishes, including three first-place finishers. Freshmen Zane Rich-ards (133), John Fahy (149) and Zac Brunson (157) all captured
titles in their respective weight classes, while Jake Kiminsky (157) placed second and Benjamin Sou-mar (133) finished fourth.
With solid performances from this weekend, the Illini will head to Ames, Iowa, on Saturday to com-pete in the Harold Nichols Cyclone Open.
Seven Illinois wrestlers win weight classes at Loras Open in Iowa
Tuesday, 7 p.m.Assembly Hall
After a 52-point victory against Marian, the Illini will face Concordia
as their last tuneup.
at
Concordia Illinois
BRENTON TSE THE DAILY ILLINI
Illinois senior Karisma Penn rises up to meet the basket during the 89-37 win against Mariam on Oct. 30. Penn and sophomore point guard Alexis Smith will have to run a different offense Tuesday against Concordia’s zone defense.
JAY LAPRETE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ohio State tight end Nick Vannett, left, catches a pass as Illinois senior Ashante Williams tackles him Saturday in Columbus, Ohio. Head coach Tim Beckman said he wants win another game before the seniors graduate. “I think they need to experience what it’s like to win again in the Big Ten,” he said.
Coach hopes to win another conference game for seniors
The Daily Illini | www.DailyIllini.com Tuesday, November 6, 2012 3B
get ready for that, but any game you play this time of year, you know it’s going to be a battle.”
Rayfi eld is an alumnus of North Carolina, and, if the Illi-ni can take down Missouri, they will likely travel to Chapel Hill, N.C., to take on the second-seed-ed Tar Heels.
Rayfi eld played under North Carolina’s Hall-of-Fame head coach Anson Dorrance from 1979-82 and left the program as the school’s all-time leader in goals scored.
She will use that potential matchup to motivate the Illini for the upcoming fi rst round. More importantly, though, the fi ve seniors on the team are now getting ready to play each game like it is their last, giving them extra incentive to keep the sea-son alive.
“I just told the team they could do me a favor by taking me back to Chapel Hill, but I think there’s pressure to win the fi rst game, there’s pressure to win every game,” Rayfi eld said. “This senior class just wants to keep playing, and we’ve been talking for a long time about how every win just buys us one more game, and that is certainly true right now.”
able employment usually don’t zip line across basketball stadiums in Ironman suits , moonwalk in space suits , drive For-mula 1 Indy racecars or squeeze into min-iature fi ghter jets , but all this has become commonplace for Michigan State’s legend-ary basketball coach. That sounds more like an endorsement for the “Most Inter-esting Man in the World” than a Big Ten basketball coach, and for that reason, he fi gures there has to be a hidden agenda.
His theory — his wife’s imaginary boy-friend wants him gone.
“It’s gotten to the point where it’s, ‘What crazy thing will he do this year?’” Izzo said. “Sometimes it’s a Final Four theme, driving in an Indy car, because we’re going to the Final Four (in Indianapolis). Sometimes it’s a military, driving in a lit-tle small plane, because we’re (playing on an aircraft carrier against North Caroli-na). Sometimes it is my wife’s boyfriend setting the scene so I propel down from the ceiling and the wire breaks.”
Michigan State doesn’t invite celebri-ties or entertainment acts to their Spartan Madness because they simply don’t have to. Their coach is the main attraction. One year, Michigan State invited movie star Gerard Butler — King Leonidas in the movie “300” — to attend the event dressed in full-Spartan gear. Izzo was standing next to him, dressed identically, and he stole the show.
“It’s not meant to be crazy. There’s a mission,” Izzo said. “Most of the things I do are to try and keep our program at a level of Duke, Carolina, Kentucky that have had 100 years of tradition. We haven’t had that. ... They’re not gimmicks. They’re just things that help keep Michigan State,
our program, up there all the time.”In a 2009 assessment by ESPN and USA
sports statistician Jeff Sagarin , Illinois was ranked the No. 6 basketball program of all-time — one spot ahead of Duke. Michigan State came in at No. 15.
Michigan State Assistant Director of Sales and Marketing Joe Rood said Spar-tan Madness generates a sense of pride for his department, and they love doing it. The event regularly receives national coverage (televised on ESPN two years ago and Big Ten Network this season) and the stadium is always packed (fi lled all 15,000 seats the last fi ve sea-sons). Illinois managed a meager 14,000 fans in three combined pre-season events between 2009-12. The attendance wasn’t recorded for this year’s Orange and Blue scrimmage.
Michigan State is a good model, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t bigger, and, perhaps, better events. Kentucky spends $250,000 each year on its midnight mad-ness, and while Michigan State wouldn’t release its event’s total expenses, Rood deferred to Kentucky as the nation’s most extravagant example of an event.
The Wildcats rarely disappoint . From John Wall dancing on top of a giant screen , launching the point guard’s brand before even playing a collegiate game, to this year’s outstretched screen across the length of the court , where a video paid homage to the program’s most successful players throughout its history. Kentucky’s event is an example of what money and
team success can buy.Brittany Boyer, who works in Ken-
tucky athletics’ marketing department, said attendance at this year’s Big Blue Madness was around 23,000 — at capac-ity — and that number included several recruits on campus visits.
The Wildcats have secured the No. 1 recruiting class in the country for three of the last four years, according to ESPN, and they currently hold the top class for 2013.
Let’s not forget Chicago-native and the fi rst overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft Antho-ny Davis played for the Wildcats last season. With Groce’s increased emphasis on keeping elite Windy City talent in state, the Illini could be vying for the same recruits as Kentucky, especial-ly with three of the top-30 recruits in the Class of 2014 from Illinois. ESPN’s No. 2 recruit in the Class of 2014 Jahlil Okafor and No. 8 Cliff Alexander are both from Chicago and have offers from Illinois and Ken-tucky. There’s no mea-sure for how much a mid-
night madness impacts recruiting, but Groce admitted it can be an extremely prominent part of the process.
Syracuse Director of Athletic Commu-nications Pete Moore said the increase in media attention at its event has been a huge factor for recruits, and ESPN’s increased interest in midnight madnesses has made that widespread across the country.
“Obviously, we see the Kentuckys and see what they do,” Larson said. “Obvious-
ly, we’re not there. ... We get ideas, bounce things off other people to see what they’re doing, what they’re spending and how suc-cessful it is.”
ESPN involved 13 schools in its four-hour midnight madness programming on Oct. 12, including full practices from Indiana, Kentucky, NC State, Syracuse, North Carolina, Missouri, Pittsburgh and Florida State, and pieces of practices from Georgetown, Maryland, Baylor, Kansas and Murray State.
Larson said she thinks Illinois could jump into that group fairly easily as long as the team showed some promise to war-rant the coverage.
“The ESPNs of the world, which they’re unique, there aren’t many of those, they’re looking to generate revenue as well, so they’re looking to go to the programs gar-nering that excitement nationwide,” Lar-son said.
While Illinois might not be Kentucky or Syracuse yet, it also isn’t Penn State or Nebraska, two basketball programs that have historically struggled to fi nd their footing.
Penn State is historically a foot-ball school, but it still hosted its second straight Hoops Madness under second-year head coach Patrick Chambers. The program invited rapper Big Sean to per-form, and paired the event with a pep ral-ly for the Nittany Lions’ football game against Ohio State. They played to their strengths. Larson has a number of con-tacts in the entertainment industry from her position at Assembly Hall, and she might play to her strengths as well.
But not all the big programs feel the need to put on a show. Groce’s mentor, Thad Matta, whom he worked under for eight seasons at Ohio State, has never allowed a midnight madness during his tenure, and he doesn’t intend to have one.
“We’re worried about March Mad-ness,” Matta said. “I deal in the reality side of things, and to me the reality is it’s a practice.”
That’s also the theory at Michigan, where the program has seemingly rebounded to the tune of a No. 5 preseason ranking, yet junior guard Tim Hard-away Jr. said head coach John Beilein has instructed the team to stay humble.
Even Illini senior guards Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson said for this season, they preferred a small scrimmage to a giant event because the team is still imple-menting a new system and adjusting to a new coach. Frankly, practices are just too valuable for this team.
Still, it’s generally assumed that mid-night madness is a positive way to brand a program, especially within Illinois’ mar-keting department. To a degree, some believe midnight madness has lost its lus-ter. A new NCAA regulation for this sea-son allowed players to work with coaches over the summer if they were enrolled in summer school. Team workouts for two hours a week began early on Sept. 15. It’s a 12-month season, and it’s harder to defi ne when the fi rst day of practice truly starts. It’s clear Driesell’s idea has shape-shift-ed into something different, but it might not be any less important to a program.
Poor athletics can lead to poor school spirit, but poor school spirit can also lead to poor athletics. Suddenly, in a year when the athletic department is paying coach-es $7.1 million not to be here, $250,000 doesn’t seem like much for the program’s grandest marketing night of the year.
To justify a investment, Groce and Lar-son need fan support to at least raise a fi nger.
Ethan can be reached at asofsky1@ dailyillini.com and @asofthesky.
FROM PAGE 1B
BASKETBALL
“Most of the things I do are to try and keep our program at a level of Duke, Carolina, Kentucky that have had 100 years of tradition.”
TOM IZZO,Michigan State head coach
Soccer players enthused about NCAAs
Illini maintain competitive drive, end losing streakBY ELIOT SILLSTAFF WRITER
The Illinois volleyball team has found this year that confi dence and competi-tiveness are not inherent in good athletic teams. Head coach Kevin Hambly said his team is talented, but those often over-looked characteristics of great teams had been lacking as the team fi nished off a 2-7 October .
On Saturday against Indiana, however, the team stayed poised, cushioned by a 2-0 set advantage, and pushed through in the fourth set to get a win fueled by competi-tive drive that Illinois hopes will boost its self-assurance.
Middle blocker Erin John son said it wavered when Illinois allowed Indiana to make a game of it, losing the third frame 25-22 .
“I thought for the majority of the match (competitiveness) was there,” the senior said. “I think in the third set, we relaxed a little bit. And that just has to do with like, getting comfortable after winning the fi rst two sets. We talked about that, and I thought we did a better job of that in the fourth set about staying on it.”
The Illini have appeared complacent at times this year after gaining early advan-tages. A 2-0 lead at home against Ohio State turned into a crushing fi ve-set defeat and the second part of a four-game losing streak suffered earlier this season .
Hambly said this time, however, it wasn’t complacency but anxiety that tripped Illinois up.
“They got very anxious in that third set (against Indiana), when they had a chance to win it. Just like they did in the fourth against Purdue,” he said. “And I’m glad we had another one to kinda work it out because you could see them get a little bit loose in that fourth, and I’m just happy for them. ... They’ve been really playing hard in matches, and I was pleased with how they competed and how they executed.”
Illinois has had two three-set victories, neither against conference opponents.
Illini hitters get back on trackRedshirt freshman Jocelynn Bi rks
rebounded nicely from one of her most trying weekends as a hitter, recording 23 kills and just three errors against Indiana on 51 swings for a .392 hitting percent-age . The performance was good enough to garner the Willow Springs, Ill ., native Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors , her second such award this season. Dur-ing the team’s recent four-game losing streak, Birks had hit .139.
Ali Stark , who struggled hitting against
Purdue, had a bounce-back performance of her own, notching four kills of her six in the fi rst set. Though her hitting numbers faded as the game progressed, she aided Illinois in the passing game and blocked four balls, including a solo stuff.
Hambly was pleased with her perfor-mance. Stark fi nished the match with only 14 swings , but Hambly said that was “just matchup stuff,” and he’d like to see her get more swings going forward.
“I thought she did great, she had a cou-ple really big blocks on the right, and I thought she had a couple of key swings
for us too tonight and passed really, real-ly well,” Hambly said. “For Ali, we want her to pass and play great defense, and I thought she did a pretty good job of that.”
Meanwhile, Liz McMahon continued to produce at a high level, notching 15 kills off 35 swings for a .314 hitting percentage . McMahon’s emergence as a serious offen-sive threat, Birks said, was not a shock.
“I’ve always expected her to be that good ... but she has been tearing it up out there,” she said.
The Illini will certainly need all of their offensive weapons clicking Thurs-
day against No. 2 Penn State. On the block, Johnson and Anna Dor n combined for just eight kills and six errors on 23 swings . Hambly said Dorn needs to regain the con-fi dence she had earlier in the season, and he wants to give her more opportunities.
“We’re gonna get her involved,” he said. “We’re trying. She’s struggling a little bit, she’s lost a lot of confi dence. We’ll contin-ue to work in practice and see if we can get it going.”
Editor’s note: The following is a partial tran-script from an Illini Drive interview with Illinois soccer senior forward Shayla Mutz and junior defender Christina Farrell .
Illini Drive: We just found out that you guys are off to the NCAA tournament. You guys are going to be playing Mizzou — kind of an interesting rivalry because it’s kind of the border war. We don’t need to play them in football, we could play in soccer. (What are your) overall thoughts?Mutz: I mean we’re really excited. Like you said, Mizzou is one of our border rivals, and we’ve played them a lot before in the past, and we’ve played a lot of teams like them that play the same style like them so it’d be nice getting matched up against them.
ID: Let’s go back to last week. Big Ten Tournament, just the grind of playing three matches in five days. You guys won the tournament last year. How much of motivational tool did you use for this year coming in?Farrell: I mean, we knew the feeling, like how awesome it is to win. And we knew that it takes a lot of fi ght and is all about keeping your body good.
ID: You’re playing three matches in five days. What do you do (on an off-day)
to take your mind off a match. And I’m directing this at (Christina) because I have a feeling I know what you were doing Saturday night watching Oregon.CF: I really don’t like to think about the game until, like, the night before. It’s just mentally taxing so, like, after one game’s over, you just put it past you and just focus. Everyone’s trying to stay up with school and stuff like that. And yes, I was watching the Ore-gon football game against USC. You really don’t want to start thinking about the game until it gets closer.
ID: First match of the tournament, you played Minnesota. You go down 2-0. You go down to 10 men — or 10 women, I should say. How were you able to fight back in that game? You come back to tie it and you fight in PKs. Your goalie stops three shots in a row. How were able to ride that momentum after being down 2-0?SM: Well, Janet (Rayfi eld) told us at halftime to write the headlines, and we knew what we’re going into, and we knew it was going to be a battle. Once we got the fi rst goal, I think it was, we had an understanding and
believing that we can win the game.
ID: You personally have started to fi nd your spark, you had two goals on senior day, are you back in a rhythm after being dinged up?SM: That was my fi rst game back, so I
was just excited to be back on the fi eld, had a lot of energy and competitiveness built up in me.
Illini Drive can be reached at illinidrive@ dailyillini.com and on Twitter @IlliniDrive.
ILLINI DRIVE
More online: To listen to this week’s full episode of Illini Drive, and its complete interview about
the soccer team’s NCAA tournament appearance online at DailyIllini.com.»
» » » » » » »
» » » » » »
DARYL QUITALIG THE DAILY ILLINI
Illinois soccer players Shayla Mutz, left, and Christina Farrell speak on Illini Drive on Monday. The Illini will face Missouri in the fi rst round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday.
JOSEPH LEE THE DAILY ILLINI
Illinois' outside hitter Jocelynn Birks goes for the kill during the victory over Indiana at Huff Hall on Saturday. Birks ended the set with 23 kills on 51 swings for a .392 hitting percentage and was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Week.
help Groce make up ground in the recruiting game.
More importantly, though, it would inspire some excitement in an Illinois fan base that is desperately wanting for something to feel good about. Illini fans used to feel pride in their teams, but recent years of watching Demetri McCamey-led squads underachieve and last sea-son’s failure to make any type of postseason play have destroyed most of that feeling. Fans are fi ck-le, and all but the most devoted have learned to live without Illinois basketball.
The evidence around the program is telling. At this season’s Stuff Huff volleyball match, at which the bas-ketball team traditionally makes an appearance and the head coach signs autographs, virtually none of the students cared that the team was there. I waited in line for 20 or 30 minutes for a picture and auto-graph with Bruce Weber three years ago (the evidence has since been destroyed). John Groce sat all by himself at the autograph table at times this year. A couple thousand fans is an optimistic estimate for the attendance of the Orange and Blue Scrimmage. And if the report-ed attendance for the two exhibition games against Lewis and West Ches-ter, 14,299 and 11,492, is even with 5,000 fans of the truth, then I’m as good an actor as Paul Walker (wait, I actually might be better).
All of this evidence speaks to a problem extending beyond the lack of a midnight madness event. The marketing team behind Illinois bas-ketball, and all Illini sports really, is failing. Football attendance numbers are down. Student support is falling. Yes, a large part of that is due to los-ing teams, but that’s where market-ing needs to enter the conversation. That’s a huge part of its purpose. But since my arrival at Illinois, the only promotions I have seen outside of games have been fi ghtingillini.com emails and a sign outside Huff Hall.
The marketing team and the bas-ketball team have said they want to hold a midnight madness event in upcoming years. They missed out on a wonderful opportunity already this year, but I guess it’s better late than never.
Daniel is senior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @danielmillermc.
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