Northwestern fans should not let our loss to Duke fade into the backdrop of what is quickly becoming a rebuilding year. We were beaten by arguably the worst team in Division I football, a team from a basketball crazy school that lost its last 22 games.
In the spirit of what could have been dubbed the Battle of Brains, we should learn from the nationally televised shaming. Duke, which spends half of what we do on football but three times as much on basketball, understands something our athletic department has failed to grasp. Basketball, not football, is the best focal sport for a school such as NU; the choice has implications far beyond athletics.
America has a love affair with football. The giant stadiums, lucrative TV contracts and endless coverage equals publicity and money for thriving programs.
It’s easy to see why NU dreams of football greatness. Wildcat football, however, is mired in mediocrity, with 26 wins and 35 losses in the past five years.
The team is certainly hardworking and principled, and the dedicated coaches and players deserve our admiration. But the deck is circumstantially stacked against their efforts to improve.
We are a small school with high academic standards, a weak fan base and a reputation for losing games. Plus, we share recruiting territory with legendary football schools. We cannot attract or accept enough premier players to annually compete with the Big Ten powerhouses.
Look to our peer institutions. Duke, Georgetown and others have complemented elite academics with moneymaking, attention-grabbing, school-spirit-building basketball teams. Building a winning basketball team requires five or six star recruits, whereas football requires dozens.
A multimillion-dollar investment in the basketball program would be money well spent. NU should hire a marquee coach to jumpstart the rebuilding effort, construct state-of-the-art facilities and better cater to players’ needs. Ditching the atrocious uniforms might even help.
Last year the Georgetown, Duke and once-mighty Stanford football teams went a combined 3-32. Despite their dismal football performances, the schools experienced no lack of student excitement, school spirit, media coverage or athletic prestige. Basketball kept them in the national spotlight and reinforced their household names.
Greater attention and media coverage from basketball will strengthen our brand and make more students want to attend NU. More applicants leads to increased selectivity, academic profile and even ranking.
A packed student section at a college basketball game is electric. Plus, there are about 20 home basketball games per season, versus six for football.
Building a men’s basketball dynasty will be a challenge. The inaugural NCAA Basketball Championship in 1939 was played on our campus, yet over the last 68 years we are the only major conference team to have never received a tournament bid.
Today football is Northwestern’s flagship sport. It is time to pass the flag to basketball. More than 2,000 teams have danced, but never the Wildcats. It’s time.
Weinberg junior Maxwell Hayman can be reached at [email protected].
