As the University of Illinois Springfield in October 2008 made another move toward full membership in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, then-Chancellor Richard Ringeisen said the eventual achievement could only mean good things for the school’s future.
He said he was excited because joining the Great Lakes Valley Conference, an academically high-achieving NCAA Division II organization, meant competing against highly respected, better-known schools. “They’re all the kind of universities we don’t mind seeing our name in the paper with,” Ringeisen said during the press conference.
To be sure, since that day, the newspapers have more than once mentioned UIS’ athletics department in the same breath as a number of fine institutions with which it’s competed. But the papers also continue to feature UIS athletics in a negative light, time and time again, as the school struggles through scandals that just won’t die.
The article was published in a January 27, 2011, edition of the Illinois Times.
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