Maybe new Illini basketball coach can save university

The purpose of college athletics is to market a university so it looks more like a slam dunk than a double dribble.

So while it seems that Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas is searching for a basketball coach, his mission actually is to find a shiny new image to plaster up on a billboard.

A prominent Illinois graduate recently impressed upon me how important the basketball hire is by saying he didn’t care about it.

If that sounds contradictory consider his point: The school has disgusted him recently, partly because it banished Chief Illiniwek but also because of the moral crises it has created.

He must have had a better grade-point average than mine because I, like a lot of sports enthusiasts, was dumb enough to focus more on athletic failures than academic irregularities.

The current climate down in Champaign reminds me of one of the greatest quotes in the history of academia. “I want a university the football team can be proud of,” University of Oklahoma president George Lynn Cross said to the State Senate.

Currently, it would be difficult to claim that Illinois has a university that the basketball and football teams can be proud of.

Not when the law school is reeling from publishing fraudulent admission data; not when the university still feels the sting from giving special consideration to applicants connected to politicians and school trustees; not when distinguished faculty members are calling for the university president to resign.

I used to be embarrassed by all the athletic scandals down there through the decades. My defense was, hey, it’s only athletics and Illinois is a great academic institution. It’s still great, but it’s reputation is tarnished.

Ron Guenther, an Illinois alumnus, became athletic director and kept the Illini out of trouble for nearly two decades before retiring last year. How ironic that just as Illinois athletics began cleaning itself up, its academic moral compass began breaking into pieces.

Illinois’ leadership failed to give sports teams a university to be proud of. All the school can hope for now is that the new basketball coach gives the university a team to be proud of.

The football program down there isn’t about to become anything special, so it’s up to the basketball program to obscure the academic mess, like car ads never mention recalls.

I understand now why other universities pay football and basketball coaches obscene salaries. The multimillionaires are supposed to win enough games to deflect attention from, oh, I don’t know, let’s say school librarians trading books for body art at an off-campus tattoo parlor.

Reports indicate that Illinois is prepared to compensate a new basketball coach with a package that includes more than $2 million in salary. If the guy comes in and elevates Illinois up to national elite level…

Well, who will notice the fudging of law-school data, the occasional less qualified applicant getting preferential treatment and the childish infighting among faculty, trustees and administrators?

The basketball coach can be the face of the university, rendering dubious academic types invisible. Winning is the everything, but maybe the new coach can even succeed without cheating.

In a convoluted way, if the coach builds a team that makes the university proud, administrators might be shamed into building a university that will make the team proud.

Of course, a winning team might also make it easier for the academics to cheat without being noticed.

mimrem@dailyherald.com