Millington is Illini's only bowl game vet

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Ordinarily, it's none too easy to forget Akim Millington.

Illinois' senior right tackle checks in at 6-foot-6 and 313 pounds, sometimes a few pounds heavier when the 2003 Wheaton North graduate goes off his usual Subway diet.

Anyway, on more than one occasion this week, someone involved in the Rose Bowl hype machine has stated, "No one on Illinois' team has ever been in a bowl before."

Illini coach Ron Zook even started his media day spiel on Sunday morning with the same misstatement.

Here's the truth: All but ONE Illini has never been in a bowl prior to Tuesday's Granddaddy of Them All.

Millington, while in his redshirt freshman year at Oklahoma, played some snaps at right tackle when USC smacked the Sooners 55-19 in the 2005 national championship game.

He also served as a scout-teamer when Oklahoma lost the 2004 national title game to LSU in New Orleans.

Millington might be setting some sort of record this week. He now has trips to the Rose, Sugar and Orange Bowls on his resume.

"A couple of guys asked for advice," Millington said. "But that's in the past. I'm just trying to look forward to this team and the things we're going to do on the 1st (of January).

"The biggest thing is don't be distracted. That's what gets you, especially being so close to Hollywood and all these stars."

When Millington left Oklahoma for on-field and off-field reasons in August 2005, he wasn't sure how to navigate his way to another football program.

He decided to rely on Dan McQuaid, his shot put and discus coach at Wheaton North.

"We told him, 'If it gets too much, get in the car and come here,' " McQuaid said. "I think this was kind of a refuge."

And so Millington eventually showed up on McQuaid's Naperville doorstep, where he has become like family to McQuaid's wife, Alice Wood, and their children.

But Millington's biggest fan just might be Alice's 77-year-old mother, Doris. "She loves him," McQuaid said. "They are so protective of him."

"When I say I'm going home," Millington said, "home is the coach's house because my mom's still in Oklahoma."

Millington and his girlfriend spent Thanksgiving weekend in Naperville, where he celebrated the holiday by cooking a unique skewered shrimp dinner.

Perhaps that was repayment for all the traveling his de facto family has done during his two years at Illinois.

To ensure Millington had someone to greet him after every game, either McQuaid or Wood traveled every Saturday (weather permitting, the whole family flies out to Pasadena today for a rare Tuesday game).

For games in Champaign, they'd meet Millington in the alley outside the players' locker room and take him to the nearby TGI Friday's.

"The best thing was seeing everybody smile after games this year," McQuaid said. "It was like a wake last year. We'd go to Friday's and say, 'Hang in there…don't worry about it.'

"This year, it was like a big party every week."