The Daily Illini Online
published Friday, September 14, 2001

Football game to be canceled

Chris Neubauer
Sports editor

The NFL's decision Thursday to cancel all of Sunday's games opened a flood gate sports teams canceling their contests. Illinois followed suit and canceled not only its football game, but the rest of its sporting events scheduled for this weekend.

Men's and women's golf and cross country, soccer, volleyball and football will not compete for Illinois through Sunday.

The most notable of these postponements is the football game between Illinois and Louisville scheduled to be played Saturday at Memorial Stadium. All Division I-A football games have been canceled.

Thursday, Chancellor Nancy Cantor made the final decision to postpone the football game after consulting several other University officials.

"(Cantor) had informal discussions when she was (at the Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday and Thursday) with at least several of the trustees and with the president (James Stukel)," University spokesman Bill Murphy said. "But ultimately it was her call."

Illinois, along with many other universities across the country, announced Wednesday that it would proceed with the football game Saturday. Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther and other University officials wanted the game to be played as a unifying event.

"It was not about football," Guenther said of Saturday's scheduled game. "It was about taking a sport and making a unified statement."

That mood changed Thursday morning, however, as one by one Division I-A conferences began to cancel their football games scheduled for Saturday.

"My heartbeat and the heartbeat of others changed as each day went along," Guenther said. "As we processed the information we felt more comfortable not to play."

In place of the game the University plans to hold an event at Memorial Stadium to remember the terrorist attacks on Tuesday. The event is scheduled to take place at 11 a.m., the original time of the game.

"We're going to have an announcement to make," Murphy said of the planned memorial event of Saturday. "The idea is to make it a more broad-based community event — to include students, to include trustees, to include alumni and to include members of the community."

"The Chancellor put great store in the unity event," Murphy said. "The two events were not going to be compatible. The spirit that surrounds the celebration (of the football game) was not going to work with a somber memorial."

The football game was to be the focal point of Dads Day Weekend and included a Varsity-I reunion. Dads Day weekend will proceed as planned, but without the football game. The Varsity I weekend was canceled due to the disruption in air travel.

"The idea of Dads Day is to have parents come down, to have it be a family-oriented day," Murphy said. "That's very much in the spirit of what's happening."

Illinois hopes to set a makeup date with Louisville soon. The only common open date is Dec. 1.

"Right now it's a postponed game," Guenther said. "Obviously December 1st is open, but not preferred."

Both schools have the option of cancelling the game if they agree. Each could then schedule games against other teams.

"They (Louisville) are not open on our two open dates," Guenther said. "If we mutually agree not to play it becomes a cancelation, not a postponement."

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