It wasn’t the Rose Bowl, but it was a win over a Top-10 team.
And it was definitely reason to celebrate.
After Saturday’s double-overtime victory over Wisconsin, cheers and car horns blared across campus and students flocked to Ryan Field to welcome home the football team.
“It felt like state school,” said Weinberg sophomore Justin Ginsburgh, who missed the game on television but made it to Ryan Field for the celebration. “Even though it’s just one game, it felt like we won the Super Bowl.”
Immediately following the win, students poured out of their dorm rooms to gather on North Campus, some students even dragged from the library by the shouting.
And when an unknown voice from the crowd shouted “Uprights,” a couple hundred students trekked to the stadium, storming the field and trying to tear down the goalposts.
But University Police soon showed up and stopped the students; no one was arrested or injured.
Still spirited, students later reconvened in the northwest section of the Ryan Field parking lot to meet their returning heroes and take part in an impromptu pep rally organized by Greek organizations, student groups and the Northwestern University Marching Band.
Once NUMB began playing about 6:30 p.m., the scattered fans gathered to greet the buses bringing home the team.
“I came out here in crutches because this is the first time in four years that the campus has been excited about football,” said Adam Ginsburgh, a Weinberg senior.
Then, the buses arrived.
Fans screamed and gave high fives to players and coaches as they filed off the buses. Although the players quickly headed to the locker room, head coach Randy Walker stayed outside and thanked fans for their support.
“My first response was, ‘What’s going on?’ Walker told The Daily after addressing the crowd. “This is a great surprise. It makes me feel good to see everyone take pride in the team.
“It’s great the kids hung in there and great to see them here. We all share one thing: our love of Northwestern.”
Walker also posed for pictures with students and even autographed one student’s cardboard sign that read “Gary Who?”
Said McCormick junior John Foglesong: “It was amazing. I’m ready to go to Michigan next weekend.”
As the students rallied and the band played, defensive line coach Jack Glowik was driving by Ryan Field with his two young daughters. He stopped to show his kids “what a real college atmosphere was like.”
“It was inspiring,” he said. “Hopefully we can give them reason to do it again.”
Half an hour after the last coach had left the parking lot and the band had stopped playing, about 40 students stuck around for a tailgate.
“We heard about the pep rally, brought up a grill, brought up some music, and we’re just having a good time,” said Weinberg senior Frank Keller, who joined his Lambda Chi Alpha brothers in hosting the tailgate.
The few cheeseburgers burning on Lambda Chi’s grill, however, served only as a preview of the celebration to come.
A previously planned Interfraternity Council tailgate on North Campus got a shot of adrenaline after news of the win spread.
“We’ve been planning the tailgate since last spring,” said John Downey, the vice president of recruitment for IFC. “We just got lucky with the timing.”
Fraternities lined the perimeter of the basketball courts with grills, cooking cheeseburgers and hot dogs and giving away pixie stix and blow pops.
“We want to celebrate a huge victory, something that’s been lacking at NU for a couple of years now,” said Prashant Patel, a McCormick sophomore who was working the Delta Kappa Epsilon grill.
The crowd of approximately 600 students surpassed the IFC’s expectations, Downey said.
“It was a great night of rejoicing,” said Kyle Wojtanowicz, a Weinberg sophomore. “It just goes to show how meaningful a win can be to campus morale.”
Michael Babin and Ericka Mellon contributed to this report.
