AD on Hot Seat for Illinois Football, Basketball Allegations?

The Illinois basketball and Illinois football teams is knee deep in a pile of controversy right now. Will this mean the end of Athletic Director Mike Thomas?

Thomas has been the AD at the University of Illinois since August of 2011. Roughly four months after Thomas was hired, Illinois football head coach Ron Zook was fired. Thomas followed the firing up by hiring his own guy Tim Beckman from Toledo.

After a poor season by the Illinois basketball team, Thomas fired their head coach Bruce Weber as well.

The Weber firing was more understandable after a 17-15 season that saw Illinois miss the post-season.

Within a span of eight months, Thomas took the two revenue generating sports programs at Illinois and flipped them so he could have his finger prints on the university.

Let’s just look purely at what Thomas has done as an AD as far as the revenue generating sports. We all know that the baseball team is doing a great job and so is the golf team, as well as the majority of non-revenue generating sports.

While I do love these sports and they are fun to play, but we all know that football and basketball are both the big money makers.

Since Thomas has put his guys into place for the football and basketball programs they really haven’t improved.

Groce came into the program back in 2012 and his first season was an improvement from the previous year.

The team won 23 games and made the NCAA Tournament, but every year later has been a decline in progress since that first season.

Groce ended this past season with 19 wins and the second straight year that Illinois basketball didn’t see the NCAA Tournament.

While I do like Groce, he hasn’t been a radical change that this program needed so far. You have to also look at what he has done on the recruiting front.

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Weber left the program with two straight classes that were in the top 20. After Weber was let go most of those players were still around and were inherited by Groce.

The first season Groce did have success with Weber’s player but nothing has developed since then.

Groce’s first recruiting class at Illinois was non-existent. He didn’t have anyone commit to the program so it didn’t even register as a recruiting class.

The other two recruiting classes that Groce brought in were ranked 21^st and 47^th in the nation. While I know the class of 2015 is going to register as a solid class, the first three classes have not been spectacular for Groce.

But the criticism doesn’t stop there in my opinion. You now have to focus on the progress of the football team.

When Thomas let Zook go after seven seasons it was supposed to be a new, fresh, start to the program but it wasn’t. Zook finished his final season with six straight losses but still ended up with a 6-6 record. I don’t think 6-6 is something to be tremendously proud of but it wasn’t a losing season.

In the last three seasons under Zook, the Illinois football team only had one losing season which was in 2009. The final two seasons he combined for 13 wins and it could have been 14 if he wasn’t fired before the bowl game.

Thomas fired Zook and brought in Beckman. Beckman has had a run in the last three seasons that is not something to be extremely proud of.

Beckman had two total wins in this first season at the helm and has not had a winning season in his time as the Illinois head coach.

The jury is still out on Beckman and that coaching staff but you can’t argue with the fact that Zook was a better recruiter.

Zook had two recruiting classes in his final three years that were both in the top 38 in the nation. He got players to sign on with Illinois and left Beckman with some solid talent.

Beckman then took over and has only had one recruiting class in the top 50 in the three years he has been there. This is all capped off by the 72^nd best recruiting class in 2014.

Thomas switching coaches in his first eight months has not worked out so far like he probably wanted it to. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things not going to way they were planned though.

Recent reports now have Beckman and his coaching staff in hot water because of allegations from former players of mistreatment.

Simon Cvijanovic and Darius Millines have both come out and told the world what happened to them in their time with the program.

Cvijanovic even went as far as to call for Beckman’s job.

These allegations are serious and an investigation is taking place on what exactly happened to these players.

Allegations did not just stop at the Illinois football program though.

In Thomas’s time with the Illini he has also hired a new women’s basketball head coach.

Matt Bollant was hired to lead the Illinois women’s basketball team in 2012. In his time with the program he has slowly improved the team on the court but allegations against him and his staff have really shinned light on what is really going on inside the program.

The families of three former players wrote letters to the school expressing their displeasure with the program and what is going on with Bollant and assistant coach Mike Divilbiss.

Since the allegations came out, Divilbiss has left the program but nothing has happened to Bollant yet.

Some of the accusations included making racial comments to players about the other teams and according to uproxx.com, it even extended further than that.

The letters also noted that Bollant and Divilbiss created racial tension among players by derogatorily noting the race of Illini players and opponents and attributing racial stereotypes to each. The families allege black players mostly recruited by former coach Jolette Laws, who was fired by Thomas, at one point were called “crabs” by the current coaches.

One letter alleges that coaches considered having separate practices for African-American players.

Thomas has only had his fingerprints on three seasons for the revenue generating sports at Illinois. In those three seasons he has yet to improve the men’s basketball and football programs, and some can argue they have even declined.

With these two sports programs floundering right now that is enough to put any AD on the hot seat, but with these recent developments of players accusing coaches of mistreatment, that is enough to get him fired.

Now, I know things are not figured out yet with either sports program. There are investigations going on and we will know soon enough.

If even one of the programs has something like this going on, which I believe at least one of them does, then there is nothing else you can do besides let Thomas go.

Thomas’s tenure as the Illinois AD has been one big ironic ride.

Thomas didn’t just rebrand the look for Illinois athletic uniforms; he rebranded the way people look at the programs. When will this uncomfortable ride be over with?

Next: Abuse Allegations Against Bollant

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