Former Illinois president and Penn State vice president Stan Ikenberry, shown receiving an Illinois alumni award last year, was the architect of PSU's Big Ten invitation in December 1989 and eventual confirmation in June 1990 by the narrowest possible (7-3) vote.Univ of Illinois/Rebekah Albaugh
It was all coming apart. And Stan Ikenberry felt powerless to stop the disassembling of his plan to bring Penn State into the Big Ten.
Thirty years ago this summer, on a Saturday night in June, the president of the University of Illinois sat in his hotel room in Iowa City and pondered how it all seemed to be going wrong. Only a few months before, It seemed as if there’d been total consensus among his presidential brethren that adding Penn State to the conference was a great idea.
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