Coming 'home' fueled Michael's return to Illinois
May 9—CHAMPAIGN — Eastern Illinois opened consecutive men's college basketball seasons at State Farm Center in 2022 and 2023. Opportunities for Tom Michael to return to the place he played four seasons in five years for Lou Henson. It was a football road trip in late August 2024, though, that had the Eastern Illinois athletic director contemplating his future.
Walking around Memorial Stadium — something he did innumerable times during 18 years as an administrator for the Illini — got Michael thinking about returning to the place he'd called home both as an athlete and for nearly two decades of his professional career. Nothing came immediately of those thoughts. Michael, hired by EIU in 2014, remained in his role in Charleston as he guided the Panthers through what's essentially turned into continuous change in college athletics.
Michael revisited that "What if? " scenario last month after some initially innocuous conversations with Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman about the Illini men's basketball team's success during the 2025-26 season. Those conversations picked up again after the Final Four.
Michael's willingness to return to Illinois after a dozen years in Charleston matched Whitman's need to rebuild his administrative staff. Deputy athletic director and COO Roger Denny left to become Oklahoma's athletic director in January, and chief commercial officer Tom Moreland was hired as Toledo's athletic director in late April. "When we came back to play football, it really hit me that, man, I'd spent 23 years on this campus," Michael told The News-Gazette on Friday, three days after he was hired as Illinois' deputy athletic director on Tuesday, a gig he will officially start next Thursday.
"That really kind of sparked something that maybe I would like to be part of this level of college athletics again — what I played in and where I spent 18 years working. I didn't know if it would ever work out or come about, but just super grateful and blessed that Josh has provided an opportunity to work with a group of coaches and everybody that he's assembled. " Michael and Whitman have kept in regular contact the last decade.
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