The Northwestern Wildcats
are the athletic teams that represent Northwestern University, a founding member of the Big Ten Conference, and is the only private university in the conference. Northwestern has eight men's and eleven women's Division I sports teams. The mascot is Willie the Wildcat. The athletics director is former Northern Illinois University Athletic Director Jim Phillips, who took office in April 2008.
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Origin of the name
Northwestern's athletic teams are nicknamed the Wildcats. Before 1924, they were known as "The Purple" and unofficially as "The Fighting Methodists." The name Wildcats was bestowed upon the university in 1924 by Wallace Abbey, a writer for the
Chicago Daily Tribune who wrote that even in a loss to the
University of Chicago, "Football players had not come down from Evanston; wildcats would be a name better suited to Coach
Glenn Thistletwaite's boys." The team was also referred to in the article as "a Purple wall of wildcats."
[1] The name was so popular that university board members made "Wildcats" the official nickname just months later.
History
Northwestern is a charter member of the
Big Ten Conference and the only private institution in the conference. Currently, Northwestern fields 19 intercollegiate athletic teams (8 men's and 11 women's) in addition to numerous club sports.
[2] Current successful athletic programs include men's
soccer,
wrestling, men's
swimming, men's golf, women's
tennis,
softball,
fencing and
women's lacrosse. The women's lacrosse team is the four-time
NCAA national champion, and went undefeated in 2005.
[3] [4] The men's
basketball team is recognized by the
Helms Athletic Foundation as the 1931 National Champion.
[5]
Northwestern's athletic teams are nicknamed the Wildcats. Before 1924, they were known as "The Purple" and unofficially as "The Fighting Methodists." The name Wildcats was bestowed upon the university in 1924 by Wallace Abbey, a writer for the
Chicago Daily Tribune who wrote that even in a loss to the
University of Chicago, "Football players had not come down from Evanston; wildcats would be a name better suited to [Coach Glenn]
Thistletwaite's boys."
[6] The name was so popular that university board members made "wildcats" the official nickname just months later. In 1972, the student body voted to change the official nickname from "Wildcats" to "Purple Haze" but the new name never stuck.
[7]
The Northwestern Athletics' mascot is
Willie the Wildcat. However, the team's first mascot was not Willie, but a live, caged bear cub from the
Lincoln Park Zoo named Furpaw. In fall 1923, Furpaw was driven to the playing field to greet the fans before each game. After a losing season, the team decided that Furpaw was the harbinger of bad luck and banished him from campus. Willie made his debut ten years later in 1933 as a logo, but did not actually come to life until 1947, when members of the Alpha Delta fraternity dressed up as him during the Homecoming parade. The
Northwestern University Marching Band (NUMB) performs at all home football and lead cheers in the student section and the
alma mater at the end of the game.
In 1998, two former
Northwestern basketball players were charged and convicted for sports bribery as a result of being paid to
shave points in games against three other Big 10 schools during the 1995 season.
[8] [9] [10] The
football team became embroiled in a different betting scandal later that year when federal prosecutors indicted four former players for perjury related to
betting on their own games.
[11] In August 2001, Rashidi Williams, a senior
safety, collapsed and died during practice from an
asthma attack.
[12] [13] An autopsy revealed that he had
ephedrine, a
stimulant banned by the
NCAA, in his system which prompted Northwestern to investigate the prevalence of stimulants and other banned substances across all of its athletic programs.
[14] [15] In 2006, the Northwestern women's
soccer team was suspended and coach Jenny Haigh resigned following the release of images of alleged
hazing.
[16] [17]
Traditions
During football games, students jingle their car keys before every kickoff and punt. This began as an arrogant taunt; Big Ten rivals often bested Northwestern at football, and the keys implied "while your school may win the football game, in a few years your school's graduates will be parking Northwestern graduates' cars." When Northwestern is on defense, students extend their arms, make a claw with their hands, and growl.
The Northwestern student section is led in their cheers by
NUMB, the Northwestern University Marching Band. NUMB performs on the field and in the stands at all home games and follows the football team to one Big Ten away game per season.
For many years, students would throw marshmallows at the kick-off of football games. Northwestern archivist Patrick Quinn says that students were likely "trying to get them into the tubas, and then started throwing them at each other," leading to the tradition of throwing marshmallows at the field. While
Gary Barnett was football coach, he banned marshmallows because they supposedly detracted from the serious level of football that he wanted for the school.
The "official"
cheer at Northwestern sporting events is the chant "Go U! NU!" Students also commonly taunt opposing sports teams with "State-school, state-school," referencing that all institutions of the Big Ten conference, except for Northwestern, are public universities.
Northwestern's
fight song is "
Go U Northwestern" A secondary fight song is "Rise Northwestern (Push On Song)," the final 4-measure tag (ending with a shouted "Go, 'Cats!") of which is often played after first downs.
Football
The Northwestern University football team has evidence of organization in 1876. Northwestern achieved an all-time high rank of #1 during the 1936 and 1962 seasons, which has thus far not been duplicated. The football team plays at
Ryan Field (formerly known as Dyche Stadium). The football team has a history of futility: its all-time record is 468-614-44 (0.435) giving it the all-time record for Division I-A losses.
[18] [19] Other dubious distinctions include being on the losing end of
the greatest comeback in Division I-A history [20] and holding the record for the longest losing streak in Division I-A, losing 34 consecutive games between 1979 and 1982.
[21] [22]
The football team's rankings of 21 by the AP Poll and 23 by the Coaches Poll in 2005 marked the team's first appearance in a national poll in 4 years. The Wildcats finished the year ranked 25 in the
BCS rankings and lost against
UCLA in the
Sun Bowl. Although the team was invited to the
1996 Rose Bowl, 1997
Citrus Bowl,
2000 Alamo Bowl, 2003
Motor City Bowl,
2005 Sun Bowl, and
2008 Alamo Bowl, the last bowl game Northwestern won was the
1949 Rose Bowl.
[23] In 2004, Northwestern broke a 33-year losing streak (46 years at home) by defeating No. 7-ranked
Ohio State 33-27.
[24]
Following the sudden death of football coach
Randy Walker in 2006,
[25] 31-year old and former
All-American Northwestern
linebacker Pat Fitzgerald assumed the position becoming the youngest
Division I FBS coach at the time.
[26] [27]
Men's basketball
The men's basketball team has never earned a bid to the
NCAA tournament, and its last conference championship came in 1933, when it tied with
Ohio State. However, it is recognized as the 1931 National Champions by the
Helms Athletic Foundation. The team qualified for the
2009 NIT with a #5 seed, but lost to
Tulsa in the first round. The team plays its home games in
Welsh-Ryan Arena, where it is cheered on by the Wildside student section.
Bill Carmody is the current coach of the Wildcats. Under Carmody, a former head coach at
Princeton, the team runs the
Princeton offense. The basketball team ended the 2008–09 season at 17–12.
Women's lacrosse
Northwestern has won the
national championship in
women's lacrosse five straight times, from 2005 to 2009. In 2007, the team joined
Maryland as the only other school to three-peat. The run started in 2005, when the team enjoyed a perfect season and defeated many long-established east-coast schools after only five years as a varsity sport to capture the school's first national championship since 1941. In doing so, it became the westernmost institution to ever win the title. Soon after, the team made national news when members appeared in a
White House photo with
President Bush wearing thong sandals, or
flip-flops, dubbed as the "White House flip-flop flap."
[28] The 2009 season also was an undefeated run. In their five championship seasons, the Wildcats have a 106-3 record.
[29]
In 2006 and 2007, Kristen Kjellman received the
Tewaaraton Trophy, which honors the best collegiate lacrosse player in the country. She was the first player from a non-East coast school to win the distinction, and the first player to be a two-time winner.
[30] Midfielder Hannah Nielsen received the award in 2008.
[31]
Golf
Luke Donald, an
Englishman who has recently been in the top 10 of the
Official World Golf Rankings, attended Northwestern, winning the NCAA title in 1999.
Softball
The
Northwestern softball program began in 1976 and has amassed 5 Big Ten championships, 10 NCAA Tournament appearances, and 5 appearances in the Women's college World series- including 2007 and their national runner-up performance 2006.
Rivalries
Their chief Big Ten rival is the
Illinois Fighting Illini. Through 2008, the teams competed in football for the rights to the
Sweet Sioux Tomahawk Trophy; now retired, it will be replaced by the Land of Lincoln Trophy starting in 2009.
Northwestern fans have cultivated strong rivalries with many Big Ten Conference foes, including
Iowa and, particularly,
Wisconsin. The rivalry with Wisconsin, the Big Ten conference school geographically closest to the Evanston campus, has grown stronger in recent years, though there is currently no official trophy for the football game.
Although the schools rarely play each other has been discussion in starting a rivalry game with Northern Illinois University to help boost attendance and interest during the non-conference schedule.
2005–2006
The 2005–2006 academic year was one of the best athletic seasons in Northwestern University's history. The football team capped a 7–5 season and third place finish in the Big Ten with a bid to the
Sun Bowl. Following the women's lacrosse team's second National Championship, the Women's doubles tennis team of Christelle Grier and Alexis Prousis won the National Championship as well. In addition, Men's tennis player Peter Rispoli captured the Flight B Singles Championship. The Women's Softball team made an incredible run to the finals of the
Women's College World Series, finishing in second place.
In May 2006 the website
BadJocks.com republished photos a reader had found on
Webshots of the women's soccer team hazing its
freshmen. The whole team was suspended for a time as a result and in the wake of the incident Head Coach Jenny Haigh resigned. Since, Athletic Director
Mark Murphy named Stephanie Erickson, the school's all-time leader in goals and points, as Haigh's replacement.
Notable alumni
- Mike Adamle, football player and sportscaster
- Damien Anderson, (St. Louis Rams)
- Darnell Autry, football player and actor (Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles)
- Louis Ayeni, football player (Indianapolis Colts)
- Brett Basanez, football player (Carolina Panthers)
- D'Wayne Bates, football player (Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings)
- Kevin Bentley, (Cleveland Browns and Seattle Seahawks)
- Scott Brownley [32], former football player, now stand up comedian
- Luis Castillo, San Diego Chargers football player
- Barry Cofield, New York Giants Defensive Lineman
- Luke Donald, golfer
- John L. "Paddy" Driscoll, football player
- Evan Eschmeyer, former basketball player
- Trai Essex, football player (Pittsburgh Steelers)
- Pat Fitzgerald, former 2-time All-American football player, current Northwestern head football coach
- Barry Gardner, football player (Philadelphia Eagles)
- Joe Girardi, former baseball player, Former Manager of the Florida Marlins and Current Manager of the New York Yankees
- Jim Golliday, track
- Brian Gowens, football player (Chicago Bears)
- Otto Graham, football and basketball player (Cleveland Browns and Rochester Royals)
- JA Happ, baseball player
- Napoleon Harris, football player (Oakland Raiders) and (Minnesota Vikings)
- Noah Herron, football player (Green Bay Packers)
- John Kidd, football player (Buffalo Bills, San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins, Detroit Lions and New York Jets)
- Mark Loretta, baseball player
- Todd Martin, tennis player
- Matt O'Dwyer, football player
- Brad North, soccer player (DC United)
- Nick Roach, Chicago Bears linebacker
- Jeff Roehl, football player
- Steve Tasker, football player (Houston Oilers and Buffalo Bills)
- Rick Telander, sportswriter, author of "Heaven is a Playground"
- Jason Wright, football player (Cleveland Browns)
- Chris Hinton, former NFL player (Indianapolis Colts, Atlanta Falcons)
References
- Maroons beat Purple by a Dropkick
- Northwestern University Facts
- Northwestern completes four-peat in women's lacrosse
- Northwestern wins lacrosse title in program's fourth year
- 100 Great Moments in Big Ten Men's Basketball History
- Maroons beat Purple by a Dropkick
- Purple Haze Won't Go Away At N.U.
- Sentences Issues in Gambling Case
- Ex-Northwestern Players Charged in Point-Shaving
- Caught in Gambling's Grip; A Promising Career Unravels at Northwestern
- Title Unavailable
- College Player Dies at Practice
- Amid Questions, Northwestern Honors a 'Hero'
- Banned Substance in Wheeler's System
- University Examines Use of Supplements
- Northwestern Women's Soccer Team Suspended After Hazing
- Title Unavailable
- Division I-A Losses 1869-2007
- Northwestern Football History Database
- Michigan State has biggest comeback in Division I-A history in defeat of Northwestern
- The Streak! Northwestern Sets Football Record, 29 Demoralizing Losses in a Row; Northwestern's Streak
- Northwestern: Paradise Found After 34 Lost Weekends
- Taking stock of the early results from football's bowl season
- Ohio State Turns Purple After Loss to Northwestern
- Randy Walker, Northwestern Head Football Coach, 52, Dies
- Northwestern’s Fitzgerald a Comforting Figure for a Familiar Pain
- Fitzgerald becomes youngest coach in Division I-A
- White house flip-flop flap
- THREE-PEAT! Northwestern Captures NCAA Title With 15-13 Win Over Virginia :: 'Cats build big lead, hold on in second half for third straight crown
- Player Bio: Kristen Kjellman :: Women's Lacrosse
- Tewaaraton Trophy Stays in Evanston! Hannah Nielsen Claims 2008 Prize
- Sports Illustrated Profile