Top of the Morning, Sept. 7, 2024

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In 2009, we took our popular Monday sports radio program — “The News-Gazette Sports Page” on WDWS — to the Esquire Lounge in downtown Champaign. Since Day 1, our sportswriters and broadcasters have enjoyed the company of a live, loyal audience — not to mention A-list guests from the University of Illinois and area high schools.

Year 15 kicks off at 5 p.m. Monday with a first: A board meeting afterward.

Among the guests for a Homecoming Week-themed show is Illini football superfan Dave Clark, this year’s Lou Liay Spirit Award winner. Wanting to show support for one of their own, the Illini Quarterback Club changed the time and site of Monday’s board meeting to — yep — the Esquire. They’ll talk business after we talk sports, the tavern clearing the way to make it happen.

“Any time one of our members gets honored, it’s exciting,” club President Gale Bickel said. “It feels like the whole club is getting honored.”

The club has been supporting Illini football since 1942 (visit illiniqbc.com to sign up). We hope you join them at Monday’s show, which includes a visit with Voice of the Illini Brian Barnhart, this year’s Honorary Alumnus by the University of Illinois Alumni Association.

“It’ll be a little different,” Bickel said, “but it will be fun. That’s what the Quarterback Club does: we go to football games and we have fun.”