And who among us couldn’t have foreseen it?

Put the two most corrupt units on campus together, and see how the magic gets made.

Devoted donors to the Fighting Illini are often thanked with prime stadium seats, first crack at tickets to bowl games or a chance to meet some of the school’s marquee players.

But a few patrons of the University of Illinois’ athletic programs also try to use the department’s prestige to give applicants they know an edge in the competitive admissions process, according to newly released campus records.

An ongoing Tribune investigation reveals an admissions system subject to outside influences. The latest internal documents reviewed by the newspaper suggest the athletic department requested special consideration for non-athletes who applied to the state’s most prestigious public university.

The campus e-mails and correspondence provided under the state’s Freedom of Information Act show that admissions officials gave special consideration to candidates with ties to athletic donors at the request of the department director and his deputies. In several cases, athletic officials sought a reconsideration of a student’s rejection, a more thorough review of an application or to hasten the review process.

In the 2008-09 application cycle, one candidate had been tagged as an automatic denial by admissions officials because of poor academic credentials, but was accepted after being recommended by the athletic department, according to a log of special requests. At least three of six students recommended by the department this year got in.

It’s just part of the all-’round beauty of bigtime university sports. We’re asked to tolerate the admission of many non-students because they can throw a ball; we sometimes forget that we’re also asked to tolerate the admission of non-students connected to the people who give money to the big sports programs.

So much money and influence… None of it having anything to do with education. I guess that’s just the way it is at the University of Illinois.

Don’t even think about Auburn.