Dear Dick Butkus, – The Champaign Room

Dear Dick Butkus,

If this letter is being published, it means your time on this planet has come to pass.

It means that the Illini fan base is mourning the loss of the person most synonymous with Illini football this side of Red Grange.

This week’s game, whatever it may be, doesn’t mean as much.

Wins and losses are the currency of this game we love, but some things are priceless.

If “Illini” took an idealized form…an avatar, it would be you, Mr. Butkus.

As a Chicagoan and an Illini, nobody screams out “one of us” to me like you always have.

You represented everything Illinois fans envision the program representing.

Old-timers would say that you played the game “the right way.” The rest of us cringe at some of your vicious hits. But both are in awe of the prodigal talent and intensity you brought to the game we love.

I never got to see you play. I saw Mike Singletary and Brian Urlacher have Hall of Fame careers in the trenches you dug.

I never heard one of your…