Kurt Kittner is the most successful quarterback in Illinois history, collecting 24 wins between 1998 and 2001. He is Illinois’ all-time leader in touchdown passes, with 70. He was Illinois’ starting quarterback when the team went to the Sugar Bowl in 2001 and was the Micronpc.com Bowl MVP in 2000. Last year, he led Amsterdam to the NFL Europe World Bowl title. Since being drafted in 2002, Kittner has spent time with six NFL organizations. Early in the 2005 offseason, he signed a contract with the Bears and is now Chicago’s No. 3 quarterback.

The Daily Illini caught up with Kittner this summer at the Bears training camp in Bourbonnais, Ill.

Q: How’s camp going?

A. It’s going alright. I don’t get that many reps, but it’s coming along. It’s football, but it’s also a business. You have to earn every rep that you get.

Q: Is it nice to be back with Ron Turner?

A. Yeah, it’s good because I know the system. That obviously helps the learning curve. It’s the system that I ran in college for four years, so obviously I’m very familiar with it.

Q: What do you like about his offense?

A. It spreads the ball around. It doesn’t concentrate on just one thing. You’ve got to use both the run and the pass to win games. I think he does a good job of putting guys in the position to win.

Q: How is it different now than it was at U of I?

A. The core of it is the same, but obviously it’s got some new stuff that it didn’t have when I was in college. For the most part, the main part of it is the same.

Q: Being from the Chicago area, what are the good things about playing for the hometown team?

A. It’s good because you grew up watching Bears games, Packers games, stuff like that. It’s good to be back at home, closer to friends and family who I haven’t seen all that much the last couple years.

Q: What have you learned since you started playing in the NFL?

A. I’ve learned more about the whole operation and how things work. It’s a lot different than in college. In college, you’ve got 18 to 22, 23-year-olds, now you’ve got 22 to 40-year-olds. Guys are a lot older, they treat you like men, but you have to work a lot of things out on your own. You can’t make the same mistake twice.

Q: What are some of your personal goals for the season?

A. Just go out and play the best that I can. I can only control those things, then I have to let everything else happen the way that it happens.