NORMAL — Peering out at Illinois State football practice from a seat in the front row of the west grandstand at Hancock Stadium, Jim Lathrop is exactly where he wants to be.
“He’s had a tough fall. He’s fighting through it,” said ISU coach Brock Spack. “He’s an amazing man. He’s an inspiration for the players. It’s hard to complain when you watch what he has to go through every day just to get out there.”
Lathrop’s first signs of Parkinson’s, a chronic neurological condition, came in 2008 when he was at Purdue. Then-Boilermakers football coach Joe Tiller urged him to get a slight hand tremor checked out.