What does it take to win big in sports activities? Here are issues we all know … proficient gamers, high-level teaching, tireless work ethic, a shared imaginative and prescient, top-notch amenities and, in an period of NIL and the switch portal, sources to make all of it occur.
It’s rather a lot to pull collectively on the school {and professional} ranges. Or is it degree? The line separating them was by no means thinner.
Regardless, there’s one other consideration in this “follow the money” chase for championships. That is, comply with Glenn Kinley.
A 2017 Normal West High School graduate, Kinley has been round a variety of successful in his younger profession as a tv sports activities director. While at KSNT in Topeka, Kansas, he lined a Kansas males’s basketball nationwide championship and two Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl wins.
Now this: Illinois’ run to the lads’s basketball Final Four as sports activities director at WCIA in Champaign.
“I’ve covered a ton of really cool stuff and I feel super, super blessed,” Kinley stated. “I’ll work 14 hours, get off work with a smile on my face and call my dad and tell him what a great day it was.”
It’s a labor of affection for the 27-year-old son of Normal’s Dave and Michele Kinley. That was very true this season reporting on the Illini, who misplaced Saturday to UConn in their first Final Four look in 21 years.
Kinley’s earliest basketball reminiscence is “sitting behind the couch crying” as a 6-year-old when the 2005 Illini misplaced to North Carolina in the championship recreation. He was in full work mode this time following Saturday’s 71-62 semifinal loss.
It ended a 28-9 season he known as “fascinating to cover.”
“You start with the makeup of the team with six Balkan guys,” Kinley stated. “They added one at the semester. Everyone called it the ‘Balkan Five,’ but there were six European guys. And then you had a kid from Champaign on the team (Kylan Boswell). It was just a very interesting makeup.
“There were some new staff members. Kevin Kruger, Lon’s son, comes back and joins the coaching staff. There was so much … it was like, ‘Where do you start with this team?’ It was a roller coaster of a year. They climbed into the top five in the country, then they were kind of struggling going into the Big Dance and figured it out at the perfect time.”
A key part was the emergence of freshman guard Keaton Wagler, who performed highschool basketball in Kansas. Not closely recruited, Wagler earned All-America honors and was the Big Ten Conference Freshman of the Year.
“When I was in Topeka, we covered Washburn (University), a Division II school in Topeka,” Kinley stated. “They’ve had a lot of basketball success. I think Keaton had an offer there and maybe even took a visit to Washburn.
“I don’t think even he knew what he was going to become this year. It was special to cover. What I said to Illinois fans (on social media) was, ‘Don’t take this for granted. This is rare.’ He was unbelievable.”
The Final Four being performed in Indianapolis was “full circle” for Kinley. In 2010, he attended the Final Four there and had his image taken with a pal and then-Illini coach Bruce Weber.
Kinley grew up rooting for Illinois, however strives to be goal on the job.
Still …
“You want them to win a little bit just because you know them,” he stated. “It’s less about ‘Go Illini!’ and more about, ‘Man, Ben Humrichous is a great dude. I want him to win because he treats people really well.’”
Kinley has a reference to Illini head coach Brad Underwood in that each are Kansas State University graduates.
They have had a great working relationship since Kinley joined WCIA in August 2024.
“He actually called me when I took the job,” Kinley stated. “A good friend of mine in Kansas knows Brad really well. He gave Brad my number. So I got a phone call while I was on the road going through the middle of Missouri, making my way to Champaign. It was from an unknown number. He said, ‘Hey Glenn. It’s Coach Underwood. Excited to have you in town.’
“That was a heck of a way to start things off in Champaign, and he’s been nothing but great to deal with.”
Close to household
When Kinley attended Kansas State, the place he graduated in 2021 with a twin diploma in journalism and entrepreneurship, he was an eight-hour drive from Normal. When he labored in Topeka, he was a seven-hour drive away.
Now, he’s an hour from dwelling and a household that features his mother and father and his youthful siblings, Kurt and Karen, who’ve Down syndrome. His older sister, Kelsey, lives in the Muncie, Indiana, space.
“If I want to go home for dinner tomorrow night, the beauty of that is I don’t have to decide until about 4 o’clock tomorrow if I want to or not,” he stated. “I loved Kansas, but being this close to my family is certainly nice.”
As a youth, Kinley seemed up to Kelsey, who he known as “the responsible one.” Kurt and Karen “are everybody’s favorite people, including mine,” he stated. His greatest pal in highschool (and now), McCade Brown, grew to become a star pitcher and made his Major League debut final 12 months with the Colorado Rockies.
It all left Kinley in the shadows a bit. That was OK.
“People may say, ‘You’re on TV. You’re in the spotlight.’ But I’ve never really felt like I’m in the spotlight,” he stated. “I’ve always been good with that. It’s been fine with me to just enjoy the people I’ve been blessed to have in my life … great friends, great family.”
Faith and no frills
Kinley calls himself “a very simple guy” away from the job. He lives in a one-bedroom condo in Champaign and when not working, usually performs video video games or watches sports activities. In the summer time, he travels sometimes to wherever Brown is to watch him pitch.
His bio on the WCIA web site reads in half: “Glenn is a Christian who values his faith, family and friends. As long as he’s got a church, a gym, a job and sports, he’s set!”
“That’s all I need, man,” he stated. “Faith is very important to me. What I’ve learned, probably the hard way, is that finding my identity in anything other than Christ is going to lead me to no good. The constant in my life, the one thing I know nobody can take from me, is my relationship with God.”
As for Kinley’s relationship with successful, he laughed and stated, “I guess if you want to win, you just have to have me as the sports director in your market.”