The University of Illinois slush fund scandal was an incident in which the athletic program at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign was investigated and punished for paying players in violation of both NCAA and Big Ten Conference rules from 1962 until its exposure in December 1966.
Disbursements were made to student athletes supposedly for the purpose of assisting them in times of extreme financial need, such as Sam Price's wife developing blood clots during a pregnancy.
Brewer then turned over slush fund documents to then-UI president David Henry, who then notified the Big Ten office, leading to an investigation being opened.
The Big Ten would later announce the penalty on February 19, 1967- Head Football Coach Pete Elliott, Head Basketball Coach Harry Combes and Assistant Basketball Coach Howard Braun must be immediately fired and all players that received payments would be ineligible for Big Ten play for varying amounts of time (in total 14 players were implicated that were still enrolled in university athletics at the time).
The university appealed the decision to the faculty athletic representatives of the Big Ten but was rejected unanimously the following month.