At a news conference introducing University of Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas four years ago, Chancellor Phyllis Wise lauded him as a man who could do it all.
“We have been able to find a man who cares about students as scholars,” Wise told reporters, “who cares about students as athletes who compete on the field to win, who cares about the university, who is wonderful at recruiting coaches and also amazing at friend-raising and fundraising.”
But time and impressions can be fleeting in the high-pressure, multibillion-dollar atmosphere of college athletics. Four years after Wise pointed out Thomas’ strengths, they may be his most glaring vulnerabilities, critics say.
Today, Thomas is dealing with a $10 million federal lawsuit that suggests his women’s basketball program may be racist. His embattled football coach, Tim Beckman, has fans and alums in high agitation over a won-loss record of 12-25 and recent contentions from two former Illini players that Beckman ignores athletes’ serious injuries.
Last month, a former women’s soccer player stung the university by filing a lawsuit contending the school and its athletic department mishandled her concussion. And Thursday, a national college athletes organization called for U. of I. to fire Thomas, Beckman and women’s basketball coach Matt Bollant.
“Yeah, I think he may be feeling a little heat,” said Dave Downey, a former basketball star at Illinois who donated $2 million to the renovation of the school’s basketball arena and is a fervent Thomas supporter. Downey said that when appearances suggest something’s wrong, “everyone involved has to be worried” about their positions.
“People always want to lop somebody’s head off,” Downey said.
In a 45-minute phone interview Thursday, Thomas, 55, deflected the perception that his job is in jeopardy.
“I think for me, I’m more of a looking-forward-type guy,” he said. “At the end of the day it’s not about me. It’s about these student-athletes and their experience.”
The allegations of seven former women’s basketball players may be the most volatile challenge facing Thomas at the moment. The athletes’ lawsuit, filed July 1 in Urbana, claims that Bollant and assistant coach Mike Divilbiss, beginning in 2012, deliberately wanted to decrease the number of African-American players on the team. In addition, the complaint states, coaches held segregated practices, prohibited white players from rooming with black players and described black players as “ghetto.”
The lawsuit also states that coaches spoke to several players “during games, practices and/or in meetings in such a manner that was designed or intended to embarrass, denigrate, demoralize and/or demean” the athletes in the presence of others to discourage the players from staying on the team. Five of the seven players transferred. Two graduated from U. of I. this spring. Five of the players who brought the suit are black and two are white. Bollant and Divilbiss are white.
Thomas, who noted that he attends women’s basketball games and many other sporting events, said he never saw conduct from the coaches that went over the line. When he became aware of alleged misconduct in late February, it was an isolated incident reported by one parent and, Thomas said, he spoke with Bollant about it.
Thomas said he became aware that the purported misconduct was widespread in April, when letters from three players’ families critical of the coaches were made public. At that point, he said, he contacted the chancellor’s office and asked it to conduct an independent investigation. That investigation found no violations of law or NCAA rules. A second, external review is pending.
But the players’ attorney alleges Thomas knew or should have known misconduct was occurring. Other critics cite that alleged lack of awareness as an example of Thomas being too insulated, too reliant on an inner circle of five or so people. Even Thomas acknowledged that he could be more accessible.
Divilbiss, who was the source of many of the players’ complaints, left the university recently in what Thomas called “a mutual separation … related to philosophical differences. I did not call the shot on that. I support coach Bollant, but that was his decision.”
Thomas also said that “the things we’re dealing with aren’t unique to Illinois. That doesn’t mean it’s OK, but it’s not unique to Illinois.” He called the allegations “troubling because they don’t match our values.”
‘I love the guy’
Thomas, a married father of four, is known as a grinder who arrives at the office at 6:30 a.m., yet has earned a reputation as reserved and low profile.
But many of the perceptions of Thomas depend on who is talking. Roughly three dozen current and former colleagues, coaches and donors spoke with the Tribune about Thomas.
Some, like alum Larry Grill, a men’s basketball and football season ticket holder for 27 years until he declined to renew after the teams finished their seasons last year, say Thomas is too focused on six-figure donors and is hurting the school’s relationship with donors bearing more modest gifts. Still others, like alum Steve Bowsher, who attended an introductory luncheon for Thomas at a Chicago restaurant, contend that he failed to articulate his vision for the athletic department.
“I walked away from that luncheon scratching my head,” said Bowsher, adding that he has been “divorced” from the university for several years. “He couldn’t really explain what his vision is. I still believe to this day that he is not at all sensitive to alumni and what alumni have to say.”
Thomas may have nearly as many supporters, like Downey, who said Thomas represents a new breed of athletic director who is “a professional administrator, and I think he’s done a good job,” particularly at fundraising. He and others noted that Thomas is one of the rare athletic directors who make themselves available for weekly radio call-in shows.
While athletic director at the University of Akron, Thomas hired J.D. Brookhart as football coach. Thomas, Brookhart said, would let coaches voice complaints and was not a micromanager.
“He took the approach he would hire the best people to do their jobs,” Brookhart recalled. “Mike didn’t want to hire people he could order around.”
Terry Holland, who as athletic director at the University of Virginia from 1995-2001 was Thomas’ boss, said Thomas “is certainly someone you can count on to do the right thing. He was really good at sorting through things.” Holland said Thomas will sort through the problems at Illinois and make sure they don’t resurface.
Thomas does have support from those heavy-hitters crucial to raising money, including Jerry Colangelo, who played basketball at Illinois and is the former owner of the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks.
“I found him to be meticulous,” Colangelo said. “I found him to be very organized, very focused on his goals.” And Colangelo, like others, pointed to widespread athletic success. This spring, the baseball team and men’s golf team won Big Ten championships and made deep runs in the NCAA tournament. Men’s track and field and men’s tennis also claimed conference championships.
But the two highest-profile and biggest-revenue sports — football and men’s basketball — continue to perform below expectations.
That lack of success disappoints alum Mannie Jackson, another former Illini basketball star and owner of the Harlem Globetrotters who donated $3 million to support the basketball hall of fame named in his honor.
“I love the guy,” Jackson said of Thomas.
“But,” Jackson said, “I have to tell you that you’ve got (two) years missing the (NCAA men’s basketball) tournament, three, four years being ordinary on the football field, three, four years of not having elite status in the sport we should be elite. There has to be some accountability.”
Success elsewhere
One of 10 kids and a native of Colorado, Thomas said he always wanted to work in sports. He graduated from Colorado State University with a business administration degree, earned a master’s in athletic administration from Western Illinois University and started his career in 1985 at the University of Iowa, then moved to the University of Denver, where he worked for seven years.
He landed at the University of Virginia and worked for seven years as associate athletic director before getting the AD job at the University of Akron, a place that longtime Thomas colleague and friend Mike Waddell called “the worst athletic department in the country.”
Thomas added corporate sponsorships, increased football attendance and saw student-athletes’ academics improve. He tapped an assistant basketball coach, Keith Dambrot, as head coach, and Dambrot has led a string of 11 consecutive winning seasons. In football, Brookhart captured a conference championship in his second season and later took the team to the school’s first bowl game.
But when Thomas arrived at Cincinnati in December 2005, he struggled.
Earlier that year, the school forced popular men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins to resign after 16 seasons, and Thomas received backlash from fans for not retaining the interim coach, Andy Kennedy, whose final postgame radio show at Fifth Third Arena was cut short after Thomas had the plug pulled.
Thomas also struggled with the media, was abrasive toward holdover staff and was seen as too reserved by donors and alumni who complained about his lack of visibility, according to interviews and news reports at the time.
A turning point occurred in 2006, when Thomas hired football coach Brian Kelly, who won two Big East championships before Notre Dame hired him. Thomas’ new basketball coach, Mick Cronin, made the NCAA tournament in 2010 for the first time in five years.
UC football attendance rocketed. The school’s athletic program earned multiple academic excellence awards and nearly doubled the number of conference academic all-stars. The athletic department eventually raised $70 million from donors and sponsors.
Still, legal and rules troubles surfaced.
In 2005, shortly after Thomas arrived, the school was sued by a group of female rowers who alleged inadequate training opportunities. The school then eliminated the rowing team to reduce costs, and a judge ruled in the university’s favor.
Separately, in 2012, the school paid $405,000 to settle a wrongful termination case brought by a women’s basketball coach Thomas had fired. And shortly after Thomas left UC, the school was placed on probation by the NCAA for two years for violating rules limiting phone calls to recruits.
At U. of I., his fundraising approach, supporters say, is geared toward long-term, sustained success. His most visible achievement will be the $170 million renovation of the school’s basketball arena, a project for which he said the school has raised $100 million over the last two years. Thomas also coordinated a more modest upgrade of the football stadium.
Contract extension
On Friday, Wise called Thomas “a strong leader who has worked to improve all aspects of our athletic programs.” She said the “troubling” allegations have taught administrators that “we can never have enough ways for students to report their concerns,” and that Thomas is establishing additional reporting methods for student-athletes. When the university receives the final report from the second investigation, Thomas will take appropriate action, she added.
“Until then, we are asking that people not rush to judgment.”
Last year, U. of I. extended Thomas’ contract until 2019. His base salary of $568,178 a year is an increase of almost $100,000.
In announcing the extension, the university pointed out that the school won a national championship in men’s gymnastics and was national runner-up in volleyball in 2012 and men’s golf in 2013.
Illini student-athletes’ graduation rate of 90 percent matched the best in school history.
Thomas’ approach, he said, comes down to setting a clear direction, including expectations for everyone in the department, and establishing “a culture of teamwork and a family atmosphere, people being excited about coming to work every day.” The student-athlete experience is his top priority, as is integrity, he said.
“I’m all about integrity,” Thomas said. “I wear it on my sleeve.”
Another football season approaches. A pair of lawsuits and their unsettling ramifications hover over the athletic department. That integrity will be put to a severe test, as will something else: Thomas’ survival skills.
Chicago Tribune’s Shannon Ryan contributed.
An earlier version of the story mischaracterized one of the claims of the athletes’ lawsuit.
