<p>
</p>
<p>Umm . . . I’m pretty sure there’s a difference between “No one cares about Northwestern Football” and “Northwestern doesn’t do well at Football.”</p>
<p>Synthesis: No one cares about Northwestern Football, despite Northwestern doing well at Football. Does that sound right?</p>
<p>phuriku: Are D-I athletics and academic rigour so mutually exclusive?</p>
<p>^“It’s like the Bears campaign: “If you’re not a fan, you’re a tourist.” They had to use that campaign because no one cares about the Bears anymore because they suck so bad.”</p>
<p>lol what was the point of this sentence then?</p>
<p>“phuriku: Are D-I athletics and academic rigour so mutually exclusive?”</p>
<p>Boston College
Cal
Duke
Georgetown
Georgia Tech
Michigan
North Carolina
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Rice
Stanford
Texas-Austin
UCLA
UIUC
UVa
Vanderbilt
Wake Forest
Wisconsin-Madison</p>
<p>Rny2, I would say the answer to your question is no!</p>
<p>Sam Lee: The Bears also reached the Super Bowl just a couple of years ago. That doesn’t mean that on the whole they’re a good team to root for. NU might reach a few bowl games (though it hasn’t won one for 60 years!), but if fans start rooting for NU, they’ll just end up disappointed 95% of the time. A few good years in one or two sports isn’t going to change the fact that in every other instance, NU is a disappointment for a Big 10 team. With Nebraska now in the conference, this is going to get even worse. Also, even though I’m a Chicago student (in which case stereotypes inevitably abound), I am quite knowledgeable about football. You can’t expect any less from a student whose hometown is Indianapolis, at least in the Peyton Manning era.</p>
<p>Alexandre: I would argue that the good teams on that list aren’t really known much for their academic rigor, at least not at the level of Chicago. Stanford is a good school sure, but it doesn’t quite have the intellectualism that Chicago does, nor can you ever expect it to. Same for Duke or Michigan or Notre Dame. Chicago strives above everything to be an intellectually rigorous institution (hence the Core curriculum), and it probably can’t effectively accomplish that goal while being a Big 10 team.</p>
<p>Schools with loaded pockets and prestige like Harvard have every chance of getting the best players in the world. I bet most serious athletes would pick Harvard over USC/Michigan/Texas any day, as long as Harvard had a great athletic team. But Harvard has decided to strive for top athletes who are also tops academically, so as to not destroy the academic feel of the university. Don’t you think the establishment of a top 10 NCAA football team would have serious ramifications for not only Harvard’s feel as an academic institution, but also donating potential from alumni unhappy about Harvard’s newfound status as a sports school? I imagine Chicago would have an even greater problem with this. The $25 mil in cash from being a Big 10 school wouldn’t compensate for the loss of donations from unhappy alumni.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s no secret Northwestern has had difficulty attracting fans to come out and watch football in person, averaging just 24,000 per game last year, last in the Big Ten and among the worst of all BCS teams. But I’m not sure that means no one cares about Northwestern football. Northwestern’s TV ratings are actually quite high in the Chicago market. Northwestern-Purdue and Northwestern-Wisconsin were two of the Big Ten Network’s most-watched games last year with especially strong ratings in Chicago, and Northwestern’s Outback Bowl appearance drew a very strong 7.1 rating in the Chicago market, smashing records for bowl game viewership on ESPN in that market. No doubt some significant fraction of the NU-Purdue and NU-Wisconsin audience were Purdue and Wisconsin fans, but I doubt Auburn, NU’s Outback Bowl opponent, has a big following in Chicago. I think the fan interest is there, especially on the North Side and along the North Shore. But there’s just no established tradition of actually going to the stadium to see a live Big Ten football game, and Evanston is not so easy to get to from much of the Chicago metro area. So people stay home and watch the Wildcats on TV.</p>
<p>“Schools with loaded pockets and prestige like Harvard have every chance of getting the best players in the world. I bet most serious athletes would pick Harvard over USC/Michigan/Texas any day, as long as Harvard had a great athletic team. But Harvard has decided to strive for top athletes who are also tops academically, so as to not destroy the academic feel of the university.”</p>
<p>I disagree phuriku. It takes just 70 athletes to have a top 10 Football AND Basketball program year-in, year-out. Do you honestly believe that those 70 athletes (some of which will be academically inclined) will “destroy” the academic feel of a university that has 4,000 undergrads, let alone 7,000 or 14,000 or 26,000?</p>
<p>This said, I agree that in order to be competitive, basketball and football programs will have to admit 15-20 or so athletes annually who would not be able to cope with Chicago’s core curriculum. How Chicago would manage to accommodate those athletes is up to the University. But would they destroy the academic feel of the University? Most certainly not. Schools like Duke and Michigan have managed to excel in their primary revenue sport and still maintain extremely high academic and intellectual standards. Do all students at those two universities ascribe to such standards? Of course not, but then again, some would argue that is a source of stength.</p>
<p>Wisconsin just received a commit from a football player who had a full scholarship to Harvard and Stanford. </p>
<p>[Athletic</a> Willis has developed into a leader for Brookfield Academy - JSOnline](<a href=“http://www.jsonline.com/sports/preps/102501314.html]Athletic”>http://www.jsonline.com/sports/preps/102501314.html)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, maybe. “As long as Harvard had a great athletic team.” But there’s the rub. A lot of minor-sport athletes are attracted to places like Harvard, and it has pretty good intercollegiate athletics in those sports. But for major sports like football and basketball, the best athletes are going to pick the top football and basketball programs every time, in part because they can get full-ride athletic scholarships which the Ivies are self-prohibited from giving, but more importantly because playing in a high-profile program is going to enhance their chances to play professionally, and for the best of them that’s worth more than a Harvard degree. </p>
<p>Michigan’s talent pool in football has been down a little recently, but there have been years in the recent past where as many as half the non-returning football players–which includes graduating seniors, graduating “fifth year seniors” who red-shirted a year, and some non-graduating players electing to go pro early—have ended up on NFL rosters. If you’re a HS kid with the ambition to play football professionally, that’s an eye-popping stat. Harvard can’t compete with that. Not unless they make themselves into the same kind of football powerhouse Michigan was until recently, and perhaps will be again. </p>
<p>Stanford in football and Duke in basketball have successfully positioned themselves as schools with top-tier academics and top-rung, high-profile athletic programs, but I believe even they have compromised their admissions standards a bit to get some of the athletes they want. Notre Dame also markets itself as filling that same niche, though I think it’s not quite at the same level academically and its athletic brand, while still strong, has lost some of its luster. Michigan also boasts up its strong academics to recruited athletes’ parents and that may give a little extra nudge to some of them, but lately I’m not sure they’re delivering what they promise on that front. Still, Alexandre’s right: recruited athletes are such a tiny fraction of the student body at these schools that they don’t represent a serious threat to the academic standards of the university as a whole. It matters more at a small LAC where there may be only a few hundred students in each year’s entering class. But once you get over 1,000 or so students in a class, a couple of dozen athletes are going to be barely discernible.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>NU has competitive teams in soccer, tennis, softball, lax, and yes, football. It’s usually ahead of a few Big Ten teams in Director’s Cup standing.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Evidently, you aren’t very knowledgeable about NU sports, much less college FB.</p>
<p>NU’s programs in lax (women’s), tennis (in particular, women’s), soccer (men’s), softball, swimming (men’s), golf (men’s), wrestling and fencing (women’s) are all top-notch programs - w/ volleyball (women’s) and field hockey being decent programs as well.</p>
<p>Over the past decade and a half, the FB teams has been solidly upper middle tier and the recently the men’s BB team has been on the NCAA bubble (w/ Coble they likely would make the NCAAs this season, but since he left the team, they probably will be another bubble contender); the womem’s BB team, after floundering for about a decade after being a consistent Tourney team, otoh, is well on its way to becoming a regular Tourney team.</p>
<p>Anyway, success on the field matters less when a university/college is situated in/near a pro sports town.</p>
<p>BC, despite pretty good success in both FB and BB. still fails to draw the Boston market and even Miami struggles to fill its stadium when it is not in contention for at least a conf. championship.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>sparkeye -</p>
<p>The decision to add UNL wasn’t so last minute as much as it was the going ons w/ the B12 which forced Delaney’s hand prematurely.</p>
<p>If you read the articles which go in depth about how the B10 and UNL ended up courting each other, you will be understand that Delaney, in particular, was struck by how much UNL shared the same “values” as the B10 when it comes to running its sports programs and the conf. as a whole.</p>
<p>Btw, I predicted that UNL would be a smart choice back in late Winter, aside from getting ND or UT of course.</p>
<p>I brought it up mostly because I’m tired of seeing the billboard that says, “Northwestern: Chicago’s Big Ten Team.” Although “Chicago, Chicago’s Big Ten Team” sounds funny too . "</p>
<p>Why would you be tired of it? If you had wanted to go to NU, you would have gone there. You chose another great school; why would it bug you that NU leverages a difference it has? Very odd.</p>
<p>But there’s already a Big Ten school in Chicago (proper) . . . . . .</p>
<p>Although since Northwestern’s professional schools are closer to downtown than Hyde Park is, I suppose they do have a legitimate claim there. shrug.</p>
<p>k&s, you are in denial.</p>
<p>The fact is that the two biggest sports that draw spectators are BASKETBALL and FOOTBALL. When we speak of ‘rooting for a college team,’ in 90% of instances, these two sports are what we’re talking about.</p>
<p>Northwestern has not won a bowl game since 1949 and has NEVER reached the NCAA Basketball Tournament. And you claim that they’re not a disappointment as a Big 10 team? Don’t make me laugh. As if any other Big 10 member even approaches NU’s abysmal performance.</p>
<p>In fact, the only reason I’m not that hesitant about encouraging Chicago to re-enter the Big 10 is that at the very least, it would have ONE team at the same level. Not that Chicago’s teams are NU-caliber now, but it wouldn’t be such a difficult feat to accomplish within 5 years. Whereas it would take at least 15-20 years to catch up with the likes of Purdue, Michigan, OSU, et al.</p>
<p>^ Gee, thanks for telling me things that I had absolutely zero idea about.</p>
<p>1st off, my response was to this comment…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>…showing that NU is quite good, if not elite, in a no. of its sports programs.</p>
<p>2nd, I specifically didn’t included the FB or men’s BB program as belonging in the group of top NU sports programs (tho, the women’s BB program seems like it is on its way).</p>
<p>3rd, despite not having won a bowl game recently (despite coming close the last 2 years but for a kicking game), as I already stated, that doesn’t take away from the fact that the FB program has become an upper middle tier team in the B10; being bowl eligible 7 out of the past 8 years (the exception being the 2006 year when the head coach unexpectedly passed away prior to the season), playing in good bowl games, beating good B10 programs like Wisconsin and Iowa on a consistent basis, not to mention having more B10 titles than every other B10 school other than dOSU and UM since 1995 (besides, I’d rather have the 'Cats play exciting games against tough opponents like Auburn and Mizzou rather than win some meaningless minor bowl game like what some Pac10 teams do).</p>
<p>Also, it looks like the FB program will only get better as the level of recruiting has improved quite a bit (btw, w/ the new division set-up, 'Cat fans rejoiced since they get to keep their heated rivalry w/ Iowa - and since the 'Cats have beaten Iowa and UW pretty consistently over the past 15 years, the thought of playing UNL doesn’t exactly have 'Cats fan shaking in their boots).</p>
<p>4th, yes, the men’s BB teams has never made the Tourney, but they were in the discussion the past 2 seasons. They will also be in the discussion this season (barring any significant injuries) even w/ their best player opting to leave the team due to a lingering foot injury, and they also will have some good recruits coming in.</p>
<p>Will they make the Tourney this season or next? Who knows.</p>
<p>But the point is that they are becoming consistently competitive.</p>
<p>Now, maybe you can surmise the diff. btwn the point that I was debunking and the tangent/really not related point that you are now trying to make.</p>
<p>
So for you, bowl game losses undo all the accomplishments during the season. You sound like the glass half empty kinda guy. People say UChi crowds are anti-social; you need to cheer up, buddy or you won’t help break that stereotype.</p>
<p>Gee, phuriku, if following college sports teams was so important to you, why did you choose U of Chicago?</p>
<p>It is very fun to tease NU people with semi-valid points. NU isn’t as bad as I knock it to be, of course. (Although no NCAA tourneys and no bowl wins since 1949 is a bit of a problem, as you well know.) And the fact that NU has historically been the worst team on average in the Big Ten for football and basketball is also hard to deny. However, I will admit that in the past few years, the situation has been improving, and I wouldn’t be surprised if NU got into the NCAA basketball tournament for the first time in the next few years. But that being said, NU’s performance is going to have to be much more dependable if it’s going to build any strong sports base.</p>
<p>PizzaGirl: Well, I actually received a full ride from Purdue plus an additional $3k/year they offered me to go there. But I figured the benefits of a U of C education are a bit more important than having a definite sports team to cheer for. So instead, I just root for all Indiana teams: Purdue, IU, and Butler, but mainly Purdue for their good will. The question itself, however, is rather silly. I imagine that most people at Harvard or Dartmouth are big college sports fans too and continue to have their own team to root for (usually connected to their home towns). It’s no different at U of C.</p>
<p>^ Actually, the so-called teasing about (more like preoccupation), as you stated, “semi-valid” points, reflects poorly on you and seems to arise from a deep-down insecurity or jealousy arising out of the fact that you can’t ever watch your school/alma mater play, much less win, big games on TV (or in the stands).</p>
<p>Really, the fact that NU puts up some billboards in the Chicago-land area shouldn’t be any source of bother or irritation (that is, unless there is some underlying insecurity/jealousy).</p>
<p>And btw, on all the college FB, B10 boards, the talk is about booting IU, Minny or UI from the B10(not to mention that lately, NU has been doing its part in FB and BB better than either IU and PU).</p>
<p>And who really cares what happened decades ago? At one time, FSU was a joke in FB until Bobby Bowden appeared on the scene.</p>
<p>Nobody in authority is seriously looking at booting anyone out of the B10. Not in this lifetime.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First of all, I think that in your second paragraph, you’re mixing me up with Ry2. (In fact, I have a feeling you’re mixing me up with Ry2 entirely.) I wasn’t the one who was angry with the NU billboards. In fact, I thought it was funny because no serious team has to advertise so much to get fans to the stadium.</p>
<p>As for your first paragraph… like I said previously, I’m not too emotionally invested in my school establishing a sports team. The only context in which I’ve even spoken of it was in the scenario that it would boost the University’s reputation, and I additionally commented that I didn’t think risking the University’s intellectual nature would be worth a small boost in prestige.</p>
<p>Obviously, if I wanted to go to a sports school I would’ve taken the full ride to Purdue. I didn’t even consider applying to schools like NU or Duke, even though I would’ve been an easy admit based on my record. And frankly, I have absolutely no attachment whatsoever to my alma mater in terms of sports, and I think picking a school based on sports is just stupid. My attachments in sports are all to my hometown. Purdue, IU, Butler, the Colts, etc. I don’t even care about the Bears. What makes you think I’d care about the Maroons if they put together decent teams? I wouldn’t even watch them on TV, much less go to the stadiums to cheer them on.</p>
<p>Of course, it seems to be a Northwestern tradition to resort to ad hominem attacks whenever anyone makes reasonable assertions involving objects of emotional attachment. “Northwestern is a disappointment as a Big 10 team.” “Oh yeah? You’re just jealous and insecure!” Nope, I’m just saying what everyone else has been thinking for the past few decades. As a Purdue fan, whenever we have Northwestern next on the roster, it’s kind of like saying “Oh sweet. It’s like a bye, except we get a win for it without even trying.”</p>