The Ryan Field student section is packed with fans jingling their keys, holding out their hands in the shape of claws and cheering on the football team.Welsh-Ryan Arena’s student section is full of students chanting and cheering for their basketball team.The perception of Northwestern athletics is one of failure. Some people are even surprised the Wildcats plays in a major conference – the Big Ten, by the way.The football team underachieves – going to a bowl game is considered a successful season.The team is probably more known for blowing a 35-point lead to Michigan State last season than winning the Big Ten in 2000 and improbably reaching the Rose Bowl in 1996.The basketball team is a fixture at the bottom of the Big Ten standings. NU is still the only team in the conference that has failed to play postseason basketball – NCAA Tournament or NIT.But these gigantic money-making sports, who play to packed houses of students and alumni, overshadow the true success of NU’s athletic program.It is an athletic program where 10 teams qualified for postseason play in their respective sports. A school that has great athletics if you know where to look.The softball team have been to two straight Women’s College World Series, earned their highest seeding in the NCAA Tournament and was two wins away from reaching their second consecutive championship series.The men’s soccer team completed its best season reaching the round of eight in the NCAA Tournament, one win away from a trip to St. Louis and the College Cup.The women’s lacrosse program is the toast of the school. The Cats won their third straight national championship and have lost two games in the past two seasons.The women’s tennis team won their ninth straight Big Ten title and reached the round of 16 in the NCAA Tournament.In wrestling, NU took fourth in the NCAA Championship and Jake Herbert won the national championship. He is taking the next season off from school to train and qualify for the 2008 Olympics.The men’s swimming team was sixth at the NCAA Championship. Led by Matt Grevers and Michael Alexandrov – who both won national titles in the 200 meter backstroke and 100 meter breaststroke, respectively – the team had its best finish in the modern era and scored the most points ever at the NCAA Championship.Except for the women’s lacrosse team, these student-athletes play in front of much smaller crowds than the football and basketball team.But outside of family, friends and a few diehard supporters, who remembers the class of 2007’s superstars?Who knows Kristin Kjellman won the past two Teewaarton Trophies as the best women’s lacrosse player and led the team in goals en route to the national championship?Who knows Eileen Canney and Garland Cooper rewrote the softball record books and won the most games in school history?Who knows Alexis Prousis won a doubles championship in tennis in 2006 and was on the No. 9 doubles team in the country last season?Who knows Brad North became the first player from NU to be drafted in the MLS SuperDraft after leading NU to the quarterfinals of the College Cup?Football and basketball games are great experiences. No student should miss seeing the best teams in the country make their annual conference trips to Evanston.But while the football and basketball teams steal the media spotlight and make NU look like a struggling athletic program, it is easy to see NU is the opposite.As the Cats get set to tackle the 2007-08 season, the football and basketball team will have its successes and its failures scrutinized the closest.But it is in these other sports where NU truly shows its athletics excellence.Reach Philip Rossman-Reich at [email protected].