CHAMPAIGN – They were the Illini’s version of The Odd Couple.

Senior offensive tackle Jeff Allen and junior center Graham Pocic were best buddies, two Illinois football starters on the last of coach Ron Zook’s teams in 2011. They came from different worlds with different skin color, but Allen and Pocic found something else from sports often missing without the great melting pot of the sports locker room.

It’s a chance to learn about another culture, another race and perhaps another way of living. That’s the way it worked for Allen, an African-American from the inner city and a graduate of Chicago King, and Pocic, who is white and a product of suburban Lemont.

Allen was a Bears fans. Pocic preferred the Packers. Allen liked the White Sox. Pocic cheered for the Cubs. Perhaps not quite Felix and Oscar, but Allen and Pocic were roommates ever since the first days they stepped foot on campus.

“We have differences, but we’re very much the same,’’ said Allen, nine years ago. “It doesn’t diminish our relationship. It made it stronger. We see where we grew up and how it’s different and why it’s different.″

We’re torn apart by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police offer used a choke hold with his knee for nearly 9 minutes. Cell phone video went viral, and the nation splintered even further. Is this 2020 or 1968? A country split by racial divide is flailing out of control, often because one culture can’t understand what it’s like on the other side of the fence.

Just like coaches said generations ago, life lessons can be learned on the athletic field, where a man is judged by his performance, not the color of his skin.

Pocic and Allen understood that almost a decade ago, when any questions about their different backgrounds and ethnicity were met with puzzled, wrinkled brows. They didn’t understand all the fuss about their bro-mance. They just liked hanging out with each other, no matter the sociological differences.

“When you go to battle with somebody every day and you’re working hard together, you look past that,’’ Pocic said. “I don’t think it’s as much of a problem as it used to be.’’

But what about the Bears-Packers and Cubs-Sox thing?

“He doesn’t really follow baseball,’’ Pocic said. “He’s only a Sox fan to try to get under my skin.’’

Skin color didn’t get in the way, either. Maybe the world could take a lesson from these two former Illini teammates and best friends. For these two guys, it all started when they shared a dorm room when they both left high school early and enrolled for the spring semester in 2008. They came from different backgrounds, Allen said, but football was one thing they had in common. They visited each other’s homes, and their different worlds didn’t push them apart.

Perhaps the country could take a lesson from Allen and Pocic.

To be clear, locker rooms aren’t necessarily filled with free thinkers. Former SIU pitcher Mason Hiser just embarrassed himself and his family with a snapchat video filled with racial hate.

And my significant other, an African-American who grew up in suburban St. Louis, recalled an instance when she listened as a white varsity teammate threw out a couple racial jokes in the varsity locker room in front of her teammates in the 1990’s.

If the example from Allen and Pocic is followed, sports can lead to real learning, moreso than just how to block, tackle, score a goal or smack a homer. But true locker room unity doesn’t happen if teammates don’t see each other as equals, if they don’t want to walk a mile in another man’s shoes to learn why everyone acts a little differently.

Let’s take it a step farther. It’s easy to root for a guy and want to be friends when he’s wearing your school colors? Would you do the same – no matter his skin color – if he wasn’t an athlete?

“We are so grateful for the opportunity to cover the careers of so many wonderful young athletes, from the time they are high school recruits, through their careers at the University of Illinois,’’ said Orange and Blue New publisher Doug Bucshon. “I want them to know that we value them for much more than their athletic ability. We try to get to know them as human beings, and it’s both rewarding and enlightening. They have so much to offer the world outside of sports.

“I know I speak for the entire staff in saying that it breaks my heart to know that many of these young men feel like their lives aren’t valued, or they are thought of as less of an American because of their race. The video of George Floyd’s life being stamped out by a police officer is horrifying. This can’t happen in the United States, and we pray that justice is served.’’

As TV and radio analyst Dan Dakich reminded us, “Mark 12:31 is so easy, so simple, yet we struggle so incredibly hard to fulfill it.’’ It says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’’

Athletics can be a great learning tool, if we can follow the lead by Allen and Pocic, taking the prejudices and bigotry out of it and just seeing a teammate for something other than the color of his skin.

So the next time you’re sitting in Memorial Stadium or the State Farm Center – or just watching in the comfort at home – ask yourself a question. Would you root for that kid in the orange and blue if he wasn’t wearing the orange and blue, even if he had a different color of skin, came from somewhere else or attended a different church?

No matter if this is 1968 when MLK was gunned down or 2020 when George Floyd’s life came to an end while his dying words played out on cell phone video, everyone makes a choice to be part of the solution or part of the problem.

More than a decade ago when they stepped onto campus, Allen and Pocic saw a teammate rather than a black kid or a white guy. That’s a life lesson from sports, and it’s one that should stick with everyone.