If not now, when?

For the UI Bored of Trustees, the future finally is now.

Providing they have enough cojones to face it. If I was a betting man ....

Check out this link from USA Today.
And from Thursday's News-Gazette online sports blurbs.

CHAMPAIGN -- Brad Dancer knows how important Chief Illiniwek is to Illinois fans.
The coach also knows his Illinois men's tennis team, ranked eighth in the country and seeded seventh in the NCAA tournament, won't host first- and second-round matches like other national contenders.

When NG sports says 'Illinois fans' mostly what it means is Loren Tate. The same Loren Tate who has bragged that the Cheef won't be retired in his lifetime. (Although there's some arguement whether that's already come and gone.)

But what the story really means is that the UI tennis team is being punished because the BOT and other dinosaurs insist on hanging on to a long-since-disgraced halftime minstrel show which benefits a few old alumni while punishing the students and athletes the UI is supposed to be serving and helping.

It's my guess that the BOT finally is going to face the music. Only question is when. And again, its my guess that they'll do it after the semester is over, after the students are gone and after the alumni are otherwise engaged with lawnmowing and patio cocktail parties.

Whenever it comes, it's gotta come soon. The eighth-ranked UI tennis teem has been placed at a very decided competitive disadvantage because of the inaction of the BOT and the stubbornness of the tradition-blinded alumni.

OK, BOT, the tennis ball is in your court. When the tennis team makes an early withdrawal from the tournament because it has had to play all its matches on the road (while the other contenders are safely nestled on their home courts), who are you gonna blame?

BOT: Whatcha gonna do...?

And so it goes.