CHAMPAIGN  The story started to spread last season, Allison Curtin''s first as a member of the Illinois women''s basketball team. It has taken on legendary status now, given the way people tell stories.

But Curtin remembers well the scene. It was her senior cross-country season, the sectional meet, on a rainy day. She tripped and fell at the start, putting her farther back in the unwieldly pack than she''d have liked, and by the time she reached the 11/2-mile mark, Curtin was in 15th place.

   Now, Curtin was a stellar runner in high school, qualifying for state as a junior and earning all-conference honors three times. But her senior season was slipping away in a hurry.

   Then Mary Curtin got into the act.

   "She started to run beside me," Allison said of her mother.

   Mary Curtin was four months pregnant.

   "For probably, I don''t know, maybe 200 or 300 yards," Allison said.

   "Is that right? I don''t know," Mary Curtin said. "You know what can happen with those stories."

   With the Curtin family, stories are not in short supply. There''s the one about the time Mary Curtin took her kids on a bike ride in the summer.

   "None of them could keep up with me," she said. "I got so mad. It infuriated me. I said, ''I''m not going to have a lot of (couch potatoes). You guys are going to get in shape, no matter what it takes.'' "

   From then on, summertime was not lounge time for the Curtin children. They could pick the activity of their choosing, but TV watching for hours on end was not a summer avocation.

   When a family includes nine kids, stories abound. But the stories that define Allison Curtin emanate and reverberate around her mother, for Allison Curtin is very much her mother''s daughter.

Mother''s little helper

   Fred and Mary Curtin raise their family on a 2,000-acre farm near Stonington, a town of 1,000 a few miles north of Taylorville. They have corn, beans, wheat and cattle.

   And nine kids, of course, all between the ages of 21 (T.J., a UI student) and 11/2 (Mary Kate, showing no ill effects from her mom''s jog). In between: Allison, 19; Suzanne, 17; Danny, 16; Meredith, 13; Candace, 11; Keith, 8; and Joe, 6.

   As you''d expect, Allison, as the oldest girl, drew responsibilities. Mary had her hands full, and someone else  short of a nanny  would have been a great help.

   In stepped Allison.

   "She had a lot of responsibility, but it was what she wanted to do," Mary said. "It''s not like I made her do it. She has so much energy, and she was always able to do what she needed for herself, then have energy left over to help others. She seemed to enjoy it, and she never complained."

   So Allison had to watch the kids. Allison had to make dinner. Allison had to make sure the house didn''t burn down while Mary took care of this, that and the other.

   "She was always looking after them," said Suzanne, who has joined Allison at the UI as a walk-on.

   "I remember the last five (kids) she had, and when she was with the baby, I was the one who cooked the meals or changed the diapers," Allison said. "When I would say something, they would mind me.

   "I was like the second mom, and they thought of me as that."

   "When she was like 5," Mary said, "she would come into the kitchen, and she would literally start making dinner. She made these cinnamon rolls once that made the town paper; they were fantastic. The funny thing is, most people don''t like to cook, but she would enlist all the kids with her. They''d sit on the table and flour would be flying everywhere. And then she''d clean it up."

   The boys, meanwhile, handled the heavy machinery and farm chores. Allison wasn''t much into farm implements, but she doesn''t need to read "The Idiot''s Guide to Farming."

   She was a board member of Taylorville High''s FFA. That''s Future Farmers of America, which she had to explain to her city-reared teammates at the UI.

   "I was vice president," she said. "No one believes it. They seriously don''t think it exists."

Favorite daughter

   They might scoff, too, if they ever discovered how popular Allison Curtin is in Taylorville, Stonington and the rest of Christian County.

   Imagine John Elway in Denver, Cal Ripken in Baltimore, Dean Smith in Chapel Hill. That''s Curtin in Taylorville.

   "Loved by everybody," said Taylorville athletic director Matt Hutchison. "She''d go out of her way to say hi to absolutely everybody at the school, and everybody knew who she was."

   Curtin led the Taylorville Tornadoes to a four-year record of 114-11, including the school''s only appearance in the state title game in 1997. She scored in double figures in a state-record 119 of 125 games in which she played. She was named Miss Basketball and The News-Gazette State Player of the Year.

   She scored 2,755 points and signed just as many autographs.

   "It''s astounding," said Randy Miller, president and general manager of WTIM-AM radio in Taylorville. "She is so charismatic, and she shows such leadership on the court. But you get her on the streets of Taylorville, and she''s a typical 19-year-old kid, just like any other kid. She doesn''t have a big head at all, and that''s why the whole community has fallen in love with her."

   That, in turn, is why WTIM is now a member of the UI women''s basketball radio network. Miller signed up for a few games last season, and he plans to carry every game this year.

   "We''re doing the whole kit and kaboodle, because of the interest in town in Allison," Miller said.

   That Curtin has become a fan favorite in Champaign-Urbana would surprise no one in Christian County. The folks there packed every nook of 2,100-seat Dolph Stanley Gymnasium, drawing sellouts during the Curtin era.

   "There''d be 2,000 people show up to watch a 50-10 game," Miller said.

   Last winter, barely a half-dozen months after Curtin graduated from Taylorville, the school retired her jersey. One other player, Bill Ridley, who played on Taylorville''s state-tourney teams in the early ''50s, has earned that distinction.

   "It''s not something we do every day," Hutchison said.

   When it comes to basketball in Taylorville, townspeople remember the unbeaten 1944 team, former Illini and Taylorville foreign exchange student Jens Kujawa and the oldest girl in Mary Curtin''s family.

   When Curtin came to Illinois last fall, she became a fan favorite nearly instantly. Her scrape-the-floor determination and endless intensity grabbed fans by the throat and made them watch. She was the Charlie Hustle of the hardwood.

   "When you work all day and you have so many dollars to allocate (for entertainment)," UI coach Theresa Grentz said, "that''s what you want to see."

   Taylorville, when it wasn''t listening to Curtin on WTIM, was busy driving to C-U. Taylorville Night at the Assembly Hall drew several full sections of Tornadoes'' fans, and Miller said plans are being made for a redux.

   "I had numbers of over 1,000 on some nights going to the women''s games," Miller said. "It''s phenomenal, and it''s all because of the way she plays on the court and the way that gal is off the court."

Anybody have four?

   The people of Taylorville had an easier time getting tickets than Curtin. Per NCAA rules, she is allowed four tickets to each game.

   "She is always trying to get tickets for her family," senior Melissa Parker said.

   Fred, Mary, Mary Kate and some variation of the siblings made it to every home game and all of the road games within driving distance. One of the exceptions was the game at Ohio State, played on an icy evening in January. The Curtins got within an hour of Columbus before turning back.

   Allison shot 0 for 7 and made four turnovers.

   "If I know my parents are going to be at the game, which they usually are, I don''t feel right until I can spot them in the crowd. If I don''t see my mother in the crowd, it makes me extremely worried.

   "At Ohio State, I had one of the worst games of my career. I was so worried. You should be able to play under those circumstances, but I couldn''t find her, and it was extremely difficult for me."

   Throughout a hard winter, Mary Curtin was diligent, and Allison expected nothing less. That is a shared trait.

   "Mary Curtin runs that family," Grentz said. "I don''t argue with Mary Curtin."

   Grentz remembered a bad-weather night last season during the UI''s break, when Curtin joined Grentz in the postgame news conference in the bowels of the Assembly Hall.

   "She sent me a note in the press conference that said, ''Theresa, don''t make this long. I''ve got to get the children home.'' "

   Grentz listened.

   "She would have been a hell of a coach," Grentz said.

   She is, in a way. She has coached Allison to a career of sterling accomplishments, a career that seems to know only one direction. And, most important to both daughter and mother, Mary Curtin has coached the best qualities in Allison.

   "She''s my biggest inspiration, my biggest fan," Allison said. "I think my mother and I are extremely alike. It''s almost scary sometimes. I think I''m more like her than any other kid in the family."

   "I feel like (Allison''s popularity in C-U) is the biggest compliment you can have," Mary said. "I just feel that when people like you, that surpasses everything else. I want all of my kids to be nice people and be appreciative of the gifts they''ve been given. I think those are the most important things."

A quick read on the Illini

   ATHLON SPORTS

   National ranking: 14

   Inside stuff: "The Illini could be a darkhorse in the Final Four pursuit," writes Philadelphia scribe Mel Greenberg. Illinois'' incoming recruits were judged as the nation''s 16th-best recruiting class.

   BASKETBALL NEWS

   National ranking: 21

   Inside stuff: Magazine ranks five potential UI opponents among its top 10 (Connecticut No. 1, Georgia 2, Notre Dame 8, Penn State 9 and Purdue 10.) Five Big Ten teams are ranked in the top 33.

   LINDY''S

   National ranking: 11

   Inside stuff: Only Penn State (No. 9) checks in ahead of the Illini. Writer Tracy Miller says the Illini, without Alicia Sheeler, "could be vulnerable to teams that pound the ball inside," and that the rugged Big Ten could make it hard for UI to maintain a high ranking.