I have heard this rumor for sometime, and finally feel confident about sharing this on April First.
The plan is to create a “super” girls conference and “super” boys conference. The plan is to have 16 old-time, traditional basketball powers form the two conference.
The boys teams would be Rockford West, Galesburg, Quincy, Effingham, Benton, Pinckneyville, Colllinsville, Centralia, Mt. Vernon, Freeport, Pekin, Cobden, Chicago Marshall, Taylorville, Proviso East, and Teutopolis. This would be the who’s who of Illinois basketball in the 1940’s thru 1970’s.
The girls teams would be Galesburg, Richwoods, Morton, Maine West, Chicago Marshall, Carthage, Teutopolis, Sterling, East St. Louis Lincoln, Stevenson, Loyola, Edwardsville, Fenwick, Freeport, Quincy ND, and Taylorville. This would be the who’s who of Illinois basketball in the 1970’s thru 1990’s.
Each of the schools would maintain their present conference affiliations in other sports.
To make the league work, Rockford West, East St. Louis Lincoln, and Stephan Decatur will need to reopen. And Carthage will need to split from Illini West.
This league is the brain child of two basketball fans, Don O’Bryant of Quincy and Brett Wool of Galesburg. They have formed a corporation called Legends League. The April First tax records show that both O’Brien and Wolfe are billionaires and are willing to throw millions into the project.
It should be noted that O’Bryant is also a leader of the Quincy group trying to get an NBA expansion team to Quincy or to purchase the Chicago Bulls and move them to Quincy. The Quincy Red Devils would play their games at an expanded Baldwin Gym that would hold 25,000 fans.
The format of the Legends League will be to play each team in the league twice, once at home and once on the road. Each road trip will have teams play on Friday evening and Sunday afternoons. For example, a team might play at Cobden on Friday night and then at Pinckneyville on Sunday afternoon.
To cover the travel expenses, O’Bryant and Wool have injected lots of money. But they have also received a huge grant from Farmers Investing in Basketball. The FIB contributions are probably of the same level as O’Brien and Wolfe’s contributions.
On April First, the FIB donation was used to rent the old Huff Gym on the University of Illinois campus for the Legends League Tourney. All 16 teams from each league will be brought into play at Huff just like in the glory days. Sweet 16 games will be played on Monday and Tuesday, Elite 8 games on Wednesday, all the semis on Friday and the championship on Saturday.
Because of the huge crowds predicted for the conference tourney, during the week of the conference tourneys, the University of Illinois men’s and women’s teams will play any home games at historic Dolph Stanley Gym in Taylorville. Tickets actually go on sale on April First.
The Legends League will also have a Hall of Fame ceremony the week of the conference tourney. April First they released five of inductees- Collinsville- Virgil Fletcher, Taylorvillle- Dolph Stanley, Freeport- Adolph Rupp, Quincy- Don O’Bryant, and Galesburg- Brett Wool.
This is all I can report on April First, but later on April First I will provide breaking news on the move of the Bulls to Quincy. Next April First, I hope to publish all the standing, stats, and the rest of the HOF inductees.
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