I always have high hopes for Illinois basketball recruits, but some of the players don’t pan out.

I want to state, I wish all players the best regardless of if they finish their career with the Illini. I don’t want to see people fail or struggle.

With that being said, there have been some big-time recruits who come into the Illinois basketball program and do not live up to their recruiting billing. I put together a list of the top 10 who I think are the biggest busts of all time.

No. 10 Crandall Head

Illinois basketball had a pretty special class of 2010 on paper. We were bringing in three top-100 recruits, and the expectations were high.

Crandall Head was a part of this group. Head was a 6-foot-4, 185-pound shooting guard from Rich South Campus High School in Illinois. He was rated as a four-star recruit and ranked as the No. 82 player in the class of 2010. He was also the No. 21 shooting guard in the country and the No. 3 player coming out of Illinois.

I think Head’s biggest issue was that his brother, Luther, was so successful at Illinois and was a part of the national title run in 2005, among other successful seasons. Those are some lofty expectations entering the college ranks.

Head couldn’t get his career off the ground. He spent two seasons at Illinois where he averaged 1.2 points and 0.8 assists per game. After his second season, Mike Thomas fired Bruce Weber, and Head entered the transfer portal.

After sitting out a year, Head ended up playing one season with the SMU Mustangs where he averaged 0.9 points and 0.9 rebounds per contest. Much like all of the Illinois basketball fanbase, I was hoping for great things out of Head, but it never came together.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WIFR) – The Illinois State Board of Education gives out 72 grants to improve computer science education totaling $3 million.

NIU among other schools will get hands-on learning tools like 3-D printers, robotics kits, virtual reality equipment and digital design software.

These tools are meant to prepare students for future careers in STEM fields.

“Computer science jobs are some of the highest paying and most in-demand. Our Computer Science Equity Grants tackle the social and structural barriers that limit students’ access to lucrative computer science fields,” says State Superintendent of Education Dr. Tony Sanders. “We are removing barriers to future careers in technology by investing in our educators and our classrooms and ensuring all students gain exposure to high-quality computer science instruction.”

This grant program also supports the legislation requiring high schools to offer computer science classes for all students, and for computer literacy to be taught at each grade level.

To view the list of schools receiving the grant and to find out more, visit ISBE’s website.

Copyright 2024 WIFR. All rights reserved.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — This school year, Illinois will become just the fifth state in the nation to prohibit corporal punishment in all schools.

Legislation that Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law this month bans physical punishment in private schools while reiterating a prohibition on the practice in public schools implemented 30 years ago.

When the ban takes effect in January, Illinois will join New Jersey, Iowa, Maryland and New York in prohibiting paddling, spanking or hitting in every school.

State Rep. Margaret Croke, a Chicago Democrat, was inspired to take up the issue after an updated call by the American Association of Pediatrics to end the practice, which it says can increase behavioral or mental health problems and impair cognitive development. The association found that it’s disproportionately administered to Black males and students with disabilities.

“It was an easy thing to do. I don’t want a child, whether they are in private school or public school, to have a situation in which corporal punishment is being used,” Croke said.

Croke was also disturbed by the Cassville School District in southwest Missouri. After dropping corporal punishment in 2001, it reinstated it two years ago as an opt-in for parents. Croke wanted to send a clear message that “it never was going to be OK to inflict harm or pain on a child.”

Much of the world agrees.

The World Health Organization has decreed the practice “a violation of children’s rights to respect for physical integrity and human dignity.” In 1990, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child established an obligation to “prohibit all corporal punishment of children.”

The U.S. was the convention’s lone holdout. Americans seemingly take a pragmatic view of the practice, said Sarah A. Font, associate professor of sociology and public policy at Penn State University.

“Even though research pretty consistently shows that corporal punishment doesn’t improve kids’ behavior in the long run — and it might have some negative consequences — people don’t want to believe that,” Font said. “People kind of rely on their own experience of, ‘Well, I experienced corporal punishment. I turned out fine.’ They disregard the larger body of evidence.”

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, last year introduced legislation, co-sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, to ban corporal punishment in any school receiving federal funds. It was assigned to a Senate committee for a public hearing in May 2023 but has seen no further action.

The U.S. Supreme Court has also rejected constitutional claims against the practice. When junior high pupils in Dade County, Florida, filed a lawsuit challenging physical discipline, the court ruled in 1977 that Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment was reserved for people convicted of crimes; it did not apply to classroom discipline.

Today, 17 states technically allow corporal punishment in all schools, although four prohibit its use on students with disabilities. North Carolina state law doesn’t preclude it but every school district in the state blocked its use in 2018. Illinois lawmakers in 1994 stopped the practice in public schools.

Among states that have completely outlawed it, New Jersey took the unusual step of barring corporal punishment in all schools in 1867. Iowa eliminated it in private schools in 1989. Maryland and New York stopped private school use in 2023.

Private school advocates, who vehemently oppose state intervention, did not oppose the new law.

Schools in the Catholic Conference of Illinois do not use corporal punishment, executive director Bob Gilligan said.

“It’s an anachronistic practice,” he said.

Ralph Rivera, who represents the Illinois Coalition of Nonpublic Schools, said he’s unaware of any member school that uses the practice. While the group usually opposes state meddling in its classrooms, Rivera said, objecting to a corporal punishment ban on principle is a tough sell.

“Even if they don’t do it, they told us to stay out of it, because it doesn’t look good when you say, ‘No, we want to be able to spank children,’” Rivera said.

The law does not apply to home schools. Home-schooled students are subject to the same rules during school hours as those they face after school.

For student athletes, discipline or correction on the football field or the volleyball court would have to go beyond the pale to qualify as corporal punishment, Croke explained during floor debate on the measure last spring.

“We talked in committee about a situation in which maybe a coach said, ‘Run laps,’” Croke said. “I do not believe this would apply by any means because when we tell a kid to run laps, the goal is not necessarily to inflict pain.”

Legislative debate, nonetheless, included Republican concern that imposing the requirement on private schools could facilitate rules affecting, for instance, curriculum or religious teachings.

Croke, whose school-age child attends Catholic school, said her intent was not to open the door to state regulation of private education but rather to “keep kids out of harm’s way.”

“There’s a red line there, that hitting kids should never be allowed,” Croke said.