Tatelines

The story line begins when a 34-year-old novice scribe arrived at The News-Gazette in the autumn of 1966, just missing football greats Jim Grabowski and Dick Butkus and basketball standout Don Freeman, and only four months ahead of the traumatic UI "slush fund." Tate's version of Illini athletics begins in that distant time, and comes to life in what were once daily columns. But it won't be told chronologically. Rather it weaves back and forth through the athletes, coaches and great rivalries, and through events that often tested the university.