Illiniwek's football finale?
Former chiefs gather at U. of I. for 80th anniversary
URBANA-CHAMPAIGN -- For 80 years, Chief Illiniwek has been a revered symbol for thousands of Fighting Illini fans.
To the men who portrayed him at University of Illinois sporting events -- many of whom gathered here Saturday -- serving as the chief was a life-changing honor.
But in recent years, he has become a lightning rod for controversy. So much so that university sources have said this is likely his last year as an official symbol of the University of Illinois -- although the school has not announced an official determination on his future.
(John J. Kim/Sun-Times)
"It's a milestone," said former chief Tom Livingston, of Chicago. "It's hard to do anything for 80 years."
Alum Darrell Stitzel said he drove 3½ hours from his home in Shannon, Ill., to see the game because "we may never see it again.'"
At halftime, after the chiefs lined up along the north end zone -- and were introduced one by one to loud applause -- they witnessed a four-minute routine that they said has been essentially unchanged for decades.
That, former chief Matt Veronie said, was to simulate sneaking through the prairie grass of Illinois before bursting out into the open.
The crowd stood and sang along to three fight songs played by the marching band, a routine known as the "Three-in-One."
The chief eventually ended up in the middle of the field. He then did a solo dance, which like the rest of the performance is meant to simulate an Indian "fancy dance." It is not meant to be a spiritual dance but for exhibition purposes -- in the Indian tradition, the former chiefs said.
While the chief will still perform at basketball and volleyball games this year, it is football where the whole tradition started in the fall of 1926 during the heyday of Illini football. (The team won the national championship the following year, its fourth in 13 years -- and last since.)
Assistant band director Ray Dvorek and student Lester Leutwiler dreamed up the idea, and then Leutwiler donned Indian regalia during halftime of a game against the University of Pennsylvania. He ended up pretending to share a peace pipe with the Penn mascot, who was dressed as a Quaker.
William Newton, 94, said it was a "well-respected honor" to play the chief even by the time he got the job in the early 1930s after learning from "the great Leutwiler." And the fans loved it, recalled Newton, a retired geologist from Littleton, Colo.
"They just ate it up," he said.
In 1970, John Bitzer, now of Collinsville, Ill., became the first to follow the footsteps of his father, Robert -- who performed at the Rose Bowl in the late 1940s. His father later made his own chief outfit and danced once with his son on the field.
Daley had sent a plane to fly Cash up from campus.
"He wanted the chief, and what the mayor wants, the mayor gets," said Cash, a retired Board of Trade member from St. Joseph, Ill.
After halftime, the former chiefs gathered in a heated VIP tent to bring all of the chiefs up to speed and determine what to do next. The chiefs have met with university officials in the past and could play a role in determining his future.
"We are holding out as much hope as we can," said 1992 chief Steve Raquel. While the chiefs want to maintain the tradition as it is now, they know "we have to face the realities," Raquel said. One of those realities is an NCAA ruling that if the chief remains, the university is barred from hosting postseason sporting events, a major blow to the athletic department.
Still, if Saturday indeed was the chief's last performance at a football game, Cash knows he will "live on in a spiritual way" in the minds of the hundreds of thousands of Illini fans who have seen him over the years.
"The chief may die, but he won't surrender," Cash said.
