'Dave Downey was a really, really good guy' — and more

Feb. 17—CHAMPAIGN — To most University of Illinois basketball fans, Dave Downey was the legend who once scored 53 points in a game at Indiana. Still a school record.

To his many family and friends, Dave was so much more.

Dave, who passed away Dec. 27 at age 84, was celebrated during a touching but happy ceremony Monday morning at the State Farm Center.

The event opened with a pair of tunes by singer Willie Nelson, a favorite of country music enthusiast Dave: "Help Me Make It Through The Night" and "The City of New Orleans."

Dave's son Jay, the first of four speakers, talked eloquently and thoughtfully about his dad.

He opened with a reference to the State Farm Center, where Dave closed his Illinois career in the then-Assembly Hall. Dave left Illinois as the school's career scoring leader and still stands No. 25.

"This gymnasium is very special to us and special to me."

Dave's jersey hangs from the rafters, serving as a constant reminder of his basketball brilliance.

"I also thought back about all the games I've attended here with him going back to the mid-60s," Jay said. "I've added that up to be at least 1,000 games. Boy, did we see a lot of great teams and basketball players."

Basketball was only a small part of Dave's contribution to his family and community.

"One of the greatest lessons Dave gave us wasn't something he lectured about," Jay said. "It was how he lived his life. He taught my sisters Jill and Jennifer and me by example to treat every person with the same dignity and respect, regardless of race or gender, which meant a lot to us.

"To him, people were people who deserved to be met with fairness and kindness. That really describes my father."

Jay remembered Dave coming home in his 1967 Corvette, which he could hear four blocks away.

"I knew it would be dinner time soon," Jay said.

Dave was always available to shoot hoops, have a catch, throw a football, and play ping-pong and pool in the basement.

Jay and Dave worked together in the insurance business for almost 30 years.

"He was very visionary," Jay said. "He always wanted to find out what the next big thing in insurance was going to be, on the cutting edge."

After his dad's passing, Jay heard from an endless line of former colleagues.

"The common theme was he was one of the smartest people they knew, but was still humble and had a way of presenting his thoughts that didn't upset people that might be on the opposite side of the table."

They all closed with, "He was a very good person."

Special tribute

Dave's wife, Jane, followed Jay during the event with a prayer and reading.

A video was shown that included interviews done with Dave over the years.

In one, Dave talked about how he got started in the game.

"My dad made me a hoop and he made it too small," Dave said. "I spent the first several years shooting at a hoop that the ball would barely go through."

Teammate Bill Small talked about Dave's style on the court.

Small recalled Dave's historic game at Indiana.

"From the get-go, it was up and down, up and down, Dave was getting open and Dave was shooting," he said.

Dave talked about the moment.

"For me, it was a capstone to an athletic career," he said. "I knew that for one time, I had played the game as well as I could play it. And I didn't need to play any more that way."

The two final speakers were Dave's close friends: former UI President Joe White and former WCIA general manager Russ Hamilton.

Dave was on the search committee that recommended White to the UI Board of Trustees.

"When Dave talked to me about UI, he always put education first, including his own undergraduate and law school education," White said. "He had his priorities straight."

He mentioned the phrases Dave often used.

"How are you Dave?" was always answered with "Better than I deserve."

"Keep on, keeping on."

"Sorry, I don't give advice. I only give feedback."

Hamilton knew of Dave growing up. They met later in life.

"Dave and I hit it off immediately," Hamilton said. "Within months, it seemed like we could finish each other's sentence."

Dave and Hamilton talked about Monday's ceremony.

What did Dave want Hamilton to say?

"Just tell them we were good friends," Hamilton said. "I said 'Nothing else?' He said 'If you have the time, tell them I was a good guy.'

"Dave is gone but not forgotten. I can tell you from the bottom of my heart, Dave Downey was a really, really good guy."

Accepting the challenge

Dave helped support local organizations: The UI Foundation, the United Way, the Community Foundation, the Carle College of Medicine, Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club, UI athletics and the Canton library.

In 2005, Dave was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

"He never complained about his situation," Jay said.

"He kept trying. He just never gave up."

Dave was able to make it to his high school alma mater in Canton, where the court is named in his honor.

Charles Leclerc says he’s ‘finding the fun in a different way’ with Formula 1’s 2026-spec machinery.

The world championship has introduced new chassis and engine regulations for the upcoming season, which has drastically changed the required driving style – as racers turn to lift-and-coast as well as downshifting in order to harvest and save energy – and increased the mental workload behind the wheel.

F1’s new cars have received a mixed reception at best, with Max Verstappen branding them “anti-racing” and “a bit more like Formula E on steroids”. Leclerc can’t help but admit it: “It’s not the funniest car.

“I mean, it's not the most fun I've had driving a car, but it's the way it is. And I find the fun in a different way.

“I think the challenge of really developing this whole new system is, in itself, something that I've enjoyed, and something that I find very interesting. In that, I kind of find some fun into just experiencing different things, and things that might have not worked in the past.

“But now that it's all different, it's cool to be able to think a bit outside the box, and to try and find other ways in trying to maximise the performance of the car. But the actual pleasure of driving the car is different.”

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Pleasure-wise, the Ferrari driver has praised the lighter, nimbler cars, which better suit his preferred "oversteery" driving style; the reduced weight is the aspect he has been enjoying the most.

“The weight, you can definitely feel it,” Leclerc pointed out. “The car is a little bit more alive, and the balance, you can play with the car a lot more and you can have a very snappy rear. Last year, I remember, with the weight it was a little bit more difficult to manage that. I've always liked oversteery cars, but with these cars, I feel like you can go a bit more extreme with them.”

But this will be overshadowed by the substantial amount of required energy management, which prompted the aforementioned comments from Verstappen – and more from other drivers.

“There's a little bit less of attack, which is what I loved with previous F1 cars,” Leclerc acknowledged.

“As F1 drivers in general, you always have to adapt and to change your driving style. This year is more of a change than we've been used to in the past. The percentage of driving is a little bit less. Now it's more about thinking about everything else that you've got to think of when you are in the car to maximise all the systems around you. So you've just got to think actively a lot more compared to in the past.

“We are all fighting to try and put the load more on the system rather than the driver. It's different across the paddock for sure, and we've all had different approaches in… what I need as a driver and what I would prefer not to have my head on because it's just too difficult to optimise as a human being, not having all the senses that the car might have. So it's a balance, but it's interesting because it's a process we are definitely quite involved in.”

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

As far as overtaking is concerned, Leclerc has joined the overall consensus that it might be trickier, as the power unit’s Overtake Mode replaces DRS – but as Pierre Gasly pointed out, what used to be “seven tenths for free” will now come at a cost energy-wise.

Asked by Motorsport if he had a chance to find out more on overtaking during testing, Leclerc replied: “We've checked it and I kind of share what my colleagues have said. I find it, at the moment, extremely difficult to get any overtakes, but it might improve with time in how we manage this kind of situations – but it always comes with a price whenever you've got to overtake, and the price is a lot more costly than it was in the past. That's why I think it's very difficult to make an overtake and then pull away like it was the case last year. That's tricky.”

All in all, Leclerc is openly expecting havoc to be wrought – especially at the start of the race, as the removal of the MGU-H on the new power units makes it trickier for drivers to find the right operational window at lights out.

“Yes, I expect some chaos,” he admitted. “As we were just saying, overtaking is going to be a big challenge. I think there are still many question marks. Yes, we try to simulate as many situations as possible, but nothing will simulate just the unpredictability that you find yourself in when there's a race start. You are not anymore in control of your line, of the way you drive, of your speed traces, because you are a bit in your enemy's hands, but it's the same for everybody.

“Again, there are lots of question marks, and I think the start is one of those as well. We are working a lot on that, just like everybody is, but it's one of those very critical moments of a race, and there might be some surprising things in the first start of the season.”

Pierre Gasly: ‘Turn your TV on for the start in Australia – it might be memorable’

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