The football team was never called the Fighting Methodists. Northwestern was only the second university to celebrate Homecoming. And The Rock has been a campus icon since 1902.
As part of the weekend’s sesquicentennial celebration, NU archivist Patrick Quinn exposed these and other campus traditions Saturday afternoon in an hourlong lecture at Norris University Center.
Archival photos and NU memorabilia also were on display for the perusal of the 100 students and alumni in attendance.
After discussing the multitude of myths on campus, Quinn turned to the actual traditions at NU.
“This university has an impressive array of traditions over 150 years,” said Quinn, who has been the university archivist since 1974. “We really have more than one might think.”
TRADITION: HOMECOMING
NU’s first Homecoming took place in 1911, only a year after the University of Illinois held the first homecoming that was recognized on a college campus.
Since then, a Homecoming parade has taken place every year at NU except for two years during World War II.
TRADITION: THE ROCK
The Rock was donated by the Class of 1902 as a drinking fountain. But during the next winter, the pipes on the fountain froze and broke.
Today’s Rock is actually two rocks melded together. After students started painting it in the 1960s, administrators decided to move The Rock from directly in front of University Hall to the side of the building.
As The Rock was being hoisted by a crane, it fell off and cracked in two. Science department staff members melded it back together.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a campus icon anywhere else as unique as our Rock,” Quinn said.
TRADITION: FOOTBALL
The football team played at four different locations on campus before moving to Dyche Stadium in 1926.
The name Wildcats has existed for only 76 years; the team originally was called The Purple, not the Fighting Methodists as rumored.
In 1924, NU played the University of Chicago, which at the time was a football powerhouse. NU lost by only a last-second field goal, prompting a writer from the Chicago Tribune to write that the team “played like wildcats, not humans.” And the name stuck.
MORE HISTORY LESSONS
NU’s history also is intertwined with the University of Chicago’s. The two universities almost merged during the Great Depression in the 1930s. NU would have been the undergraduate facility, and the U of C. the graduate school. But the medical school faculty protested, and the merger never happened.
Quinn also discussed the impact some notable alumni and faculty have made, including presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan; football star Otto Graham; and history professor William “Wild Bill” McGovern, who is rumored to be the prototype for Indiana Jones.
For Tom Powers, Weinberg ’63, the tale of McGovern brought back memories.
“I had McGovern for several classes and the myth of him being a model for Indiana Jones is totally believable,” he said. “I heard him tell the story of being the first American in Tibet. He was truly a living legend.”
• Read more coverage from the Sesquicentennial Celebration
