The Daily Illini
URL: http://www.dailyillini.com/index.php/article/2010/01/editors_note
Current Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:00:56 -0600
Editor's note
Starting Jan. 26 and continuing 2-3 times a week into March, The Daily Illini sports staff presents one of its biggest and most ambitious projects ever — an opinionated look at the Top 20 Illini athletes of the decade, from 2000-2009. For athletes to be eligible for the list, they had to have played at least half of their Illinois careers in the 2000s. Voting criteria was based on individual success, contribution to team success and, for lack of a better word, “intangibles,” or everything behind the statistics that made these athletes great. As for the voting process, athletes from every varsity sport were nominated by the DI sports staff. Those nominees were then run past the UI sports information department to ensure no one from this decade was overlooked. Preliminary voting eliminated many candidates, and after much discussion and another vote, the final list was reached. So enjoy reading, talking and arguing about what made the top Illini athletes of the past 10 years so great.
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Reader Comments
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Since your ranking was admittedly based on opinion, I don't have a problem with most of it, but Dee Brown as #1? In the end you disappointingly made your ranking a popularity contest. Dee is arguably Illinois' most recognizable athlete from the past decade, especially since this is a basketball school, but he is not even close to being the best athlete. You put him above athletes who have been to the Olympics, hold national titles and records, and have been one of the top professionals in the country or world in their respective sports. Dee is a great guy, but he won for his charisma and heart, not his individual successes or athleticism. Plus, if you covered other athletes in the DI as much as basketball players, I'm sure you'd find many of them match or exceed Dee in charisma and heart, too.
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No mention of Brian Cook. 1st round draft pick and Big Ten Player of the Year.
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Despite their huge successes, not a single wheelchair athlete makes the list? Nice job acknowledging the greatest college level wheelchair sports program in the nation. And, oh by the way, the program that first started wheelchair sports at the collegiate level. Congratulations on this epic flop of a list. All that history to work with, recent and otherwise, and you fail.
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