For football legend Dick Butkus, the first and foremost cause celebre is keeping the next generation of athletes from resorting to illegal and dangerous steroids, as well as other performance enhancing products. Butkus and his son Matt formed the I PLAY CLEAN program in 2006  to educate and encourage high school students to make the right choice of playing clean.

While steroid usage has been a major problem in young males for quite some time (and continues to be today), the program’s research has shown that the biggest increase, recently is in female athletes.

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Dick Butkus simply does not hold back, nor should he. He’s got a lot more than “senior privilege” backing his right to conduct candid conversation, as he’s simply the greatest linebacker in football history. He’s a franchise cornerstone for two storied Land of Lincoln football clubs that sport the orange and blue, and he just can’t understand why both of them, the Chicago Bears and the Illinois Fighting Illini, can’t get to the top and stay there.

Speaking ahead of the inaugural Illini Athletics Hall of Fame gala (Butkus was a member of the very first class to be honored), he told a group of reporters his bold thoughts on the Illini football struggles (read that over at this link and listen to the audio below)

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Shakespeare famously said “past is prologue,” and Dick Butkus is hoping that the Illini football program can repeat the glorious history that he helped make. In the inaugural Illinois Athletics Hall of Fame class, Butkus is as much a “this individual needs no introduction” as possible.

In Illini football lore, there’s Dick Butkus and Red Grange, and then there’s everybody else. The nation’s top linebacker, at both the high school and collegiate level, receives the “Butkus Award” each season, and that says it all.

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