A University of Illinois official familiar with the decision says the school has hired Washington University athletic director Josh Whitman as its new AD.

The University of Illinois has fired Athletic Director Mike Thomas. Barbara Wilson, the Interim Chancellor on the Urbana campus, said in a Monday morning news conference that a change in leadership was necessary. She said that "distractions" led to the decision after a law firm's findings brought on the firing of former football coach Tim Beckman at the start of the season. 

Tim Beckman's firing is just the latest crisis to affect University of Illinois athletics. The university faces lawsuits and allegations of mistreatment in two other sports on the Urbana campus. Murray Sperber teaches in the Cultural Studies of Sport in Education program at U-C Berkley. In this encore report, he tells Illinois Public Media's Scott Cameron that going public with complaints of abuse are often a first step toward changing the culture of big time college sports..

The University of Illinois will name the new court at the State Farm Center after longtime Illini coach Lou Henson. The university announced the move Monday, saying the Lou Henson Court will bear the 83-year-old former coach's signature.

The 2015 Illinois baseball team (50-10-1) set more records during its season than any other in program history. But even after its season concluded Monday against Vanderbilt at the NCAA Champaign Super Regional, the achievements kept rolling in.