Big 10 | As heard on News-Gazette Radio | News

If you haven’t caught any of the 54 episodes of News-Gazette Radio, powered by GTPS Insurance, we hope you’ll give us a try (4-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday on WDWS 1400-AM, with every podcast available on iTunes, Spotify and at news-gazette.com).

Here’s just a small sampling of what the 189 movers, shakers and headline makers who’ve appeared as guests have had to say through the first 14 weeks.

Chief of staff and vice chancellor for administrative strategy, University of Illinois

On the origin of the tradition of dressing up the Alma Mater for big events: “The dressing of Alma started in 2005 when we went to the Final Four. It was a group of students — we think they were in Fine and Applied Arts, and they just overnight did a jersey on her.

“The facilities people said: ‘Hey, should we take that off her?’ And we said: ‘No, that’s actually kinda cool.’

“And afterwards, I thought: You know, Alma has been standing there for so long and she’s seen so much and she doesn’t ever really get to participate. Maybe we should think about how to let her participate more.

“So I talked to my husband and said: ‘I have this idea. I’d like to have Alma wear regalia at commencement but I can’t have the university pay for that. That just doesn’t seem appropriate, so would you be OK that we donate the cost of that if I could find somebody to make that?’ He said: ‘No, that’d be great.’

“So I called Herff Jones, the cap and gown people, and said: ‘Would you help us with this and what would it cost?’ They responded by saying: ‘We’re happy to do it but on one condition.’ And I thought, ‘Ohh, what’s that gonna be?’ And they said: ‘We want to donate it.’

“It was very sweet of them. They have dressed Alma for commencement since then.”

Fox Sports college basketball analyst and former Stanford All-American

On why he has Brad Underwood’s Illini No. 1 in his early 2026-27 Top 25: “It’s way too early to figure out what the transfer portal will bring everyone … but I feel very strongly that Illinois will be — at minimum — a top-five team on paper, talent-wise, and I just like where this program has been going.

“They were a No. 1 seed in 2021 and they got a bad draw with Loyola of Chicago, but I loved that team. They got to an Elite Eight just a couple of years ago with Marcus Domask and Terrence Shannon Jr. And then they rebuilt pretty quickly and this year were absolutely worthy of a Final Four.

“I like where the program is. I like their sustainability — Brad Underwood is really clearly the right fit. I like their style of play — it’s entertaining. It’s a style that, if I were a great player, I would want to play in. Great fan base.

“They check all these boxes, to me. I know Duke’s gonna be good — they’re gonna go out and get transfers and freshman recruits. I think Michigan’s gonna maintain, but I don’t know: Michigan’s losing a lot more, and Duke is losing a lot more, than Illinois is.

“People can call me an idiot or a moron or whatever but I’m pretty confident that Illinois is going to be in that top-five mix and right now, putting them No. 1, to me, it just makes sense.”

Illinois state climatologist

On what recent monsoon-like rains have done to severe drought conditions around the area: “It’s been great, honestly. I know there’s been some standing water and heard from some folks who had water in their basement — especially between Champaign and Bloomington, which caught a little bit more — but overall, the drought conditions have been greatly improved.

“You saw that in the last drought monitor map, where it took away the extreme drought. We’ll probably see more improvement this week. The big thing is our soil profile is wetter — it’s not excessively wet in most places but it’s wetter — and our water table levels are coming up.

“If you venture out to Lake of the Woods or Homer Lake, those are really good places to see that kind of impact, where we’ve had some really low levels over the last few months. It’s been dramatically improved.”

Owner, 83 Vietnamese of Champaign

On the challenges of surviving, let alone thriving, in the restaurant business: “You hear that statistic — most restaurants are going to fail within the first year. I definitely can understand that but at the end of the day for us, we really came in with our heart and knowing what we wanted to do. It’s been hard to ‘teach’ our community how to eat our food but I think we’re succeeding very well at that.

“If there are any complications, really, it’s just the rise in costs of everything. Things that people might not even understand. Even a sauce cup — you fill that thing up with sauce and it’s costing more than ever these days — down to credit card payments.

“We owned restaurants in the ’80s, and we didn’t even have a credit card machine until the late ’90s. Now, that chews away almost 6 percent of our money, just like that in a year.

“It’s those things you really don’t think of too much that also have a heavy impact on pricing and driving pricing to do our best to keep money together for the business and to grow. But at the end of the day, we keep pumping away … put out heads down and move forward.”

Illini men’s basketball office administrator and organizer of Brad Underwood’s annual Kickin’ Cancer fundraiser

On how next week’s event at Gordyville — featuring the Final Four squad as special guests — has grown over the years: “It’s grown drastically. I was on the committee with Julie Pioletti, who used to work in basketball as well when Coach (John) Groce and Coach (Tim) Beckman were here, and decided to do it together.

“(Back then), I’m guessing we maybe had a couple people in attendance and now we’re going to probably shut it off around 2,000 people next week.

“We’ve went from raising a couple hundred to a couple thousand to last year raising over $550,000. It’s been pretty amazing how it’s evolved, especially in the last five or six years.

“I always hope that we can at least make what we did the year before — or more. … I’m gonna be greedy this year: My goal is $600,000.”

Second-grade teacher, South Side Elementary

On “being a goofball,” his answer for how he keeps his students engaged in a recent News-Gazette Teacher of the Week feature: “I wanted to say clown first but I thought goofball was a little bit more appropriate for the article.

“Really, what I lead with in my classroom is building relationships with the kids first and understanding them, and then from there taking advantage of that with humor and unexpected things that they wouldn’t think would happen at school.

“Not afraid to use a silly voice. Not afraid to use puppets. Anything that really just gets them laughing with me is something that’s been helpful.”

Sun Belt Conference commissioner, chair of 2026 NCAA men’s basketball tournament selection committee

On whether it’s time to tweak the College Football Playoff format: “I think having a 12-team playoff for college football has been terrific. I think I would evolve it to 16 teams.

“I think neutral sites at some point are important because the crowd does matter when you’re trying to figure out who the best team is. So having those final games at neutral sites has created some compelling matchups.

“I like the framework we have now. Getting to 16 would be a really good thing — and then evaluating if we need to go higher. I don’t know that I’m against going more than 16 but I do think you want to crawl before you walk so I don’t know that you want to go from four to 12 to some giant number.”

Chief Illiniwek 20, author of the poem “How should I feel?” that led Tuesday’s Town Hall section

On whether the University of Illinois ought to adopt an official mascot: “I think most all of us would say: We’ve never had a mascot, so why do we need one now? I think the Chief lives in the hearts and minds of many who experienced it pre-2007 and a kingfisher — or a whatever — I don’t think serves us well.

“We’re the proud Fighting Illini. That ought to be enough.

“Do we need somebody dancing around, making a fool of themselves, on the sidelines? I don’t think so.”