By Sean McDevitt
FightingIllini.com

Fred Wakefield has always been on the move.

It started when he relocated to Tuscola, Ill., with his mother and started a new school. It continued going from a potential Iowa football recruit to deciding to play for Coach Tepper and the Fighting Illini. He moved on to an eight-year career in the NFL, and then after his playing days were over, he transitioned to the financial sector, health care, and sales. Along the way, he came back to the University of Illinois and obtained his MBA.

For the last few years, he served as Director of West Coast Development and Donor Relations for the University of Illinois I FUND and the Office of Athletics Development. 

Through it all, he kept moving forward.

"It was just a really exciting opportunity."

Growing up down the road from Champaign in Tuscola, Wakefield only wanted one thing: to play basketball. Standing 6' 7", he had the height associated with the sport but not quite the talent.

"I thought I was going to be a basketball player way before a football guy," said Wakefield. "Remember, Tuscola had some really good basketball programs go through there. I couldn't dribble worth a darn, so it didn't work out very good."

Being the new kid in school, Wakefield found sports was the easiest way to meet people.

Wakefield said, "It was my bridge to make friends when I was a little kid. It was on the football field where you made buddies—especially moving around as much as I did as a kid. Once you got a chance to play, and people recognize you're pretty good, it made it a lot easier to make friends. I tell my kids, it's always great when you can be in a fall sport when you go into a new school because it's an instant batch of friends you can make right away."

As a high school football player in the 1990s, recruiting was a different game than it is today. Wakefield received a few initial interest letters, filled out the paperwork with his metrics and programs would follow-up or not. There wasn't a lot of video schools could use to evaluate. The days of social media posting and YouTube were still a few years away from becoming as prominent as it is today.

"The size I was and how fast I was back then if I would've had some video, I probably would have been even more highly recruited because I was just a kid who could run," said Wakefield.

Coming out of high school, Northwestern, Iowa, and Illinois were the ones recruiting the hardest. He was close to committing to Iowa when the call came in from Coach Lou Tepper.

"I remember sitting in my kitchen with my Mom getting that offer," said Wakefield. "I was ready for what was next. It's funny, today these guys go to college to go to the pros, and I was just excited because I wanted to go play college football. It was just a really exciting opportunity."

"It turned into patty cake more than football…"

Wakefield played for the Fighting Illini football team from 1997-2000, earning first-team All-Big Ten honors in 2000 at defensive end. A team captain as a senior, he ranks fourth on the single-season and career tackles-for-loss list and third for career quarterback sacks, and seventh in season sacks in the Illinois record books. In 2000, he led the team with 21 tackles behind the line of scrimmage with nine of those sacks.

Competing for Big Ten titles meant competing in the trenches during practice. Wakefield remembers getting into it with his teammate and future Illinois Director of Athletics Josh Whitman.

"I was someone who fought all the time, early on," said Wakefield. "Being the guy who wasn't that big, trying to get a spot and make a name. I was always fighting and competing. I think Josh got in one fight his entire life, at least on the football field, and it was with me in practice. I vividly remember Coach Turner seeing it and yelling, 'All right, you got that much energy. Start running!' And we ran forever. As soon as we got done running, he put us right back in the drill. It turned into patty cake more than football, for a little while, after that."

Wakefield has nothing but good things to say about his former teammate.

"We all knew that he was going to step up and do something big." Wakefield said. "He worked so hard, he was so smart, and just such a great team guy in the locker room that you knew that he stood out. I still joke with a lot of people that I would have won all kinds of academic awards if it wouldn't have been for Josh Whitman. Of course, he was taking substantially harder classes and graduated a whole semester, maybe two, before I did."

"The smartest thing I think I've ever done."

After suiting up for the Fighting Illini, he played eight years in the National Football League—six with the Arizona Cardinals and two with the Oakland Raiders. It was a time he remembers fondly, but he doesn't miss playing.

Wakefield said, "Looking back on it, the things you miss are the locker room. And working with those groups of guys that are just so dedicated to one thing, and that was winning a game. I was one of those guys who was ready to be done. I mean, I had played a long time. Getting eight was fantastic."

After his time in the National Football League, Wakefield returned to the central Illinois area, where he served in the financial industry with Northwestern Mutual and the healthcare sector. While back in Illinois, he also returned to the University of Illinois to obtain his MBA.   

The move from professional athlete into something quite different was a new challenge. It was complicated, but with the help of some great friends, he was able to navigate the change.

"It was a mix of trying to kind of figure out what you like to do because you've been focused on one thing for so long," Wakefield said. "I was blessed to have some great people in my life throughout that transition. Eventually, I went back and got my MBA which was probably the smartest thing I think I've ever done. And then, over time, moved into that world of sales and business development strategy."

Moving back to Arizona, Wakefield worked in sales and as the Director of Strategic Alliances for a Bay Area cybersecurity consultancy. However, he still always had his eye on the Illini, and when Josh Whitman was named Athletics Director, the lifelong friends had dinner and started talking about the West coast.

Wakefield said, "I told him I'd spent so much time in San Francisco and Vegas and Denver and San Diego and Phoenix and all these places out here. There were so many Illinois people, and it'd be interesting if there were some kind of a liaison out here. The funny part is, early on, I wasn't even thinking about myself."

"Keep spreading the word."

After three years of working to build out that network on the West coast, Wakefield is yet again moving forward. Soon, he'll be working full-time with QTAC Fire and Rescue, a California-based company that specializes in vehicle-based emergency response equipment and mobile spray systems.

"I'm transitioning into a high-level sales position, working to build out those strategies, find new ways to go to market, and work with them to see if we can grow something cool," said Wakefield.

Although he won't be talking with alumni and donors regularly, Wakefield will always champion Illinois athletics.

"I've told Josh, I'm going to keep spreading the word and probably do a lot of the same stuff I've been doing for the past three years along the way," said Wakefield. "Even though I won't have a title and won't be a constant person, the door will always be open as an advocate of what's going on over there in DIA and Illinois Athletics."